Preamble

The House met at half-past Two o'clock

PRAYERS

[MR. SPEAKER in the Chair]

Oral Answers to Questions — PUBLIC BUILDING AND WORKS

Naval Establishments, Portsmouth

Mr. Judd: asked the Minister of Public Building and Works what is the estimated value of work being undertaken by his Department in Her Majesty's Royal Naval Dockyard and other naval establishments at Portsmouth in the financial year 1967–68; and that is the estimated value of work being undertaken by private firms on a contract basis in the same establishments during the same period.

The Minister of Public Building and Works (Mr. Robert Mellish): £2½ million. About half is done by direct labour and half by contract.

Mr. Judd: When the Government are rightly emphasising the need for full mobilisation of economic resources, is not my right hon. Friend aware that there

is considerable concern in the dockyard that outside facilities should be used which could be employed on import substitution and export programmes when there is surplus capacity available within the dockyards?

Mr. Mellish: If my hon. Friend will bring any specific cases to my attention, I will investigate. But I am satisfied at present that the work done in the yard, the way in which it is done and the form in which it is done, are just about right.

New Works of Art

Dr. David Kerr: asked the Minister of Public Building and Works what is his policy for the commissioning of new works of art for exhibition on sites and in buildings for which he is responsible.

Mr. Mellish: My Ministry has on a few occasions commissioned new works of art for exhibition in buildings or on sites. Otherwise such works of art as are displayed are in general existing items purchased out of voted funds or accepted as gifts or on loan.

Dr. Kerr: Will my right hon Friend accept my admiration and congratulations for the courage displayed by his Department in face of often ill-informed criticism about the quality of the work shown on sites for which he is responsible? Will he accept the need for continued patronage of the arts by the commissioning of new works of the kind displayed opposite this House in the shape of the Henry Moore sculpture?

Mr. Mellish: I think that the most effective way I can encourage modern artists is by buying their existing works, and that I shall continue to do, having received advice from the appropriate committees set up to advise me.

Parliamentary Building (Alternative Sites)

Dr. David Kerr: asked the Minister of Public Building and Works, what investigations he proposes to undertake of possible alternative sites for a new Parliamentary building.

Mr. Mellish: This depends in the first instance on the views of the House of Commons (Services) Committee.

Dr. Kerr: Will not my right hon. Friend accept the plain fact staring us in the face that we cannot have at one and the same time the preservation of the architecture and surroundings of this place and an adequate Parliamentary building to serve the purposes for which it should be created?

Mr. Mellish: My hon. Friend is a distinguished member of the Services Committee. I wish that he would get it to make up its mind about what it wants.

Mr. David Steel: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that we are still awaiting a debate on the Services Committee's Report of last summer advocating an extension to the present building? Is it not extraordinary that, throughout the country, we should urge business and industry to be efficient and to modernise while we operate in the most inefficient circumstances?

Mr. Mellish: We have a site available across the way but Parliament has not yet made up its mind what we are to do with it. Apparently, as Parliamentarians, we cannot get down to making up our minds on this matter. As Minister, I am literally crying out to be told what to do about it.

Mr. C. Pannell: Does my right hon. Friend recall that, when the Selwyn Lloyd Committee suggested a contigous building to this one, it added that it would have to be in Gothic? Will he therefore frown on any idea such as the monstrosity proposed by the Services Committee, which would merely put an up-ended matchbox in New Palace Yard?

Mr. Mellish: I must say that that idea frightened me too.

Mr. Chichester-Clark: I am not committing myself to what was said by the hon. Member for Wandsworth, Central (Dr. David Kerr), but may I ask the right lion. Gentleman whether he will expedite a meeting with the Services Committee so that a decision can be reached?

Mr. Mellish: I am due to meet the Committee shortly, in connection, I understand, with transport proposals consequential upon anything done across the way.

Housing (Building Materials)

Mr. Edward M. Taylor: asked the Minister of Public Building and Works what will be the effect of devaluation on the price of building materials for housing construction.

Mr. Mellish: The direct effect of devaluation will be to increase the prices of imported materials by up to about 17 per cent. I estimate that this will increase the cost of building an average house by about 1½ per cent. The increase in the cost of building flats will be less and in some cases may be as low as ½per cent.

Mr. Taylor: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that house prices have rocketed since devaluation by about £200? As the building industry seems to have been singled out for harsh treatment by the Government. will the right hon. Gentleman discuss with his colleagues the possibility of relieving it from the Selective Employment Tax or abandoning the Transport Bill?

Mr. Mellish: I reject the allegation that the building industry has been singled out by the Government for harsh treatment. It is simply not true. If house prices have risen by as much as the hon. Gentleman suggests, not very much of it is due to devaluation.

Mr. Chichester-Clark: The right hon. Gentleman has now gone up ½ per cent. on his last forecast of prices. What will be added by the removal of the regional employment premium, which the former Chancellor of the Exchequer said would have a valuable effect?

Mr. Speaker: Order. That is another question.

Mr. Mellish: I am not changing the figure I originally gave. I said in November that the increase on the average house would be about 1½ per cent. and I have repeated that today. If the hon. Gentleman wants the figures on which this is based, I will send them to him.

Building Projects (Imported Materials)

Sir G. Nabarro: asked the Minister of Public Building and Works whether, in view of the need not only to enforce maximum economy in connection with all building projects but also to insist upon the use of indigenous materials with a view to reducing imports wherever possible, he will arrange for a special appeal to be issued to all architects, civil engineers, and other professional persons concerned with building in order to draw their attention to the national interest involved.

Mr. Mellish: The Economic Development Committees for Building and Civil Engineering and the Construction Materials Group have this matter regularly on their agenda. I am confident that all the professions concerned with construction are well aware of the need for economy and efficiency and know of the need to dispense with imported materials where there are suitable home produced alternatives.
I do not feel therefore that I need arrange for any special appeal.

Sir G. Nabarro: Will the right hon. Gentleman bear in mind that, other than food, the import of building materials is the largest single charge against the adverse balance of payments? Will he not therefore consider a general appeal to support the "I back Britain" campaign and theDaily Express "Buy British" campaign, all of which could make a substantial impact on that deficit?

Mr. Mellish: I respect the hon. Gentleman's motives, and, in the light of what he has said, I will certainly consult the professional organisations again. The hon. Gentleman will understand that whatever I do must be done through them, for they are the recognised bodies and I must carry them with me.

Sir Winston Churchill (Memorial)

Mr. Shinwell: asked the Minister of Public Building and Works what progress he is able to report on the House of Commons memorial to the late Sir Winston Churchill.

Mr. Mellish: The sculptor, Mr. Oscar Nemon, is now engaged on the full-scale model, which he expects to have ready by the end of this month. I will arrange for the Memorial Committee to see it. If it is approved, and no difficulties arise over the casting, the bronze statute should be completed before the end of the year.

Stonehenge (Defacement)

Mr. Biggs-Davison: asked the Minister of Public Building and Works what steps are being taken to prevent the defacement of Stonehenge.

Mr. Mellish: Stonehenge has been daubed with paint, probably by students during rag weeks, five times in the last year.
This might cause serious archaeological damage, and I am asking principals of schools and colleges round about to try and stop this vandalism. I am also considering further security measures.

Mr. Biggs-Davison: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that Stonehenge has also been daubed with C.N.D. propaganda? Is it not quite deplorable that this tremendous national inheritance should be misused in this way? It does not matter whether it is C.N.D., or "Wilson must go", or "Up the Tories"; it is quite wrong that this should happen. What effective precautions is the right hon. Gentleman taking?

Mr. Mellish: I do not know who is doing this damage. It is quite disgraceful and the scrubbing with caustic or detergent substances which we have had to undertake will cause, and has already caused, some damage. I am taking special security measures, but I would rather not disclose them to the hon. Gentleman, or some of the queer characters whom he has mentioned will know about them.

Building Licences

Mr. Biggs-Davison: asked the Minister of Public Building and Works what is the total value of building licences


granted since the licence limit was reduced to £50,000; and what percentage of such licences has been for building for purpose of entertainment.

Mr. Costain: asked the Minister of Public Building and Works what was the number and value of building licences issued under the Building Control Act, 1966, to the most convenient date; and how many applications he has refused.

Mr. Mellish: In the period from the enactment of the Building Control Act to 29th December, 1967, 1,068 projects with a total value of f212·2 million have been licensed and 117 projects with a total value of £20·2 million have been refused. Just over 9 per cent. of the licences granted have been for projects classified as entertainment, more than half of which have been for hotels.

Mr. Biggs-Davison: In view of the unemployment in the building trade, is it to be and will it be the Ministry's present and future policy to regard applications indulgently and sympathetically?

Mr. Mellish: My present policy is very flexible.

Mr. Costain: In view of that and in order to save civil servants, would it not be a good idea to abolish this licensing?

Mr. Mellish: As the hon. Gentleman knows, building licences are needed in times of overload on the construction industry, which certainly cannot be said of it today. However, the licences do not apply in development areas, or to houses. or industrial buildings. The hon. Gentleman may be interested to learn that of last December's figures, for which I have responsibility, only 2 per cent. were rejected. I shall be as flexible as possible.

Public Record Office

Mr. Longden: asked the Minister of Public Building and Works if he is aware that the accommodation and facilities for research workers in the Public Record Office are inadequate; and what proposals he has for improving them.

Mr. Mellish: Yes, Sir. Last year, my Department provided an extra 40 places for readers in the main building. This year, a further 50 places for readers and storage space for records are being provided, in premises nearby in Lincoln's Inn

Fields. The photographic accommodation in the main building is being improved. The longer-term needs of the Public Record Office are being studied.

Mr. Longden: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that this building houses what is perhaps the finest collection of historical documents in the world and that during the summer months students from all over the world converge upon it only to find primitive accommodation for reading and writing? May I therefore thank him for his Answer, which will give much pleasure?

Mr. Mellish: The hon. Gentleman and the House will be interested to know that the work which we are doing in the photographic department will cost £24,000 and that other work will cost £9,000. I am having discussions with the officials of the Public Record Office to see what more I can do to help.

Whitehall Plan

Mr. Chichester-Clark: asked the Minister of Public Building and Works whether he will make a statement about the position of the Whitehall Plan.

Mr. St. John-Stevas: asked the Minister of Public Building and Works whether the Government intend to implement the Whitehall Plan.

Mr. Mellish: Planning is continuing for the redevelopment of the Bridge Street/Richmond Terrace site. The requirement for new Parliamentary accommodation on this site is being considered by the House of Commons Services Committee.
Traffic arrangements in the area are still the subject of study by the authorities concerned.
Following the public inquiry in to the Broad Sanctuary site by Sir Robert Matthew, the Government have agreed that there should be a comprehensive plan for redevelopment of this site. Consultations have been held with those with property interests in the site, and the authorities concerned.

Mr. Chichester-Clark: Can the hon. Gentleman tell us a little more about the unified scheme for the Broad Sanctuary site, as one of the owners is the Government?

Mr. Mellish: There has been a public inquiry and Sir Robert Matthew recommended a comprehensive plan for the use of the site by my Ministry and others. A joint comprehensive scheme is now being pursued by the property owners in consultation with the planning and other authorities concerned.

Mr. St. John-Stevas: Pending a decision on this plan, will the Minister continue to frown on monstrosities, whether Gothic or matchbox, proposed to be built in New Palace Yard, which would destroy one of the finest amenities of New Palace Yard, the catalpa trees?

Mr. Mellish: I am in the difficulty that I have to do in this matter what I am told by the House. I assume that the House will have the chance to decide what, if anything, should be built in New Palace Yard. I can say that as a Member of the House and if there is a free vote, I shall vote against it.

Mr. Fletcher-Cooke: As by far the most urgent and, I think, unanimous recommendation is that something should be done about the traffic in Parliament Square, can the right hon. Gentleman hold out any hope for the tunnel bypass, which would get through traffic out of Parliament Square?

Mr. Mellish: The Ministry of Transport, with the G.L.C., which is the traffic authority, and my Department have been in consultation about traffic and I understand that a report will be given to the Services Committee at its next meeting, a report probably based on those recommendations. I hope that then the Services Committee will at long last make up its mind about what we can do about the Bridge Street site.

Mr. C. Pannell: Will my right hon. Friend appreciate that the claims of the catalpa trees are greatly over-rated and that they are not as good as they are cracked up to be? However, in order to avoid building over New Palace Yard, may I ask whether he has investigated the possibilities of building over other courts as has been done in Star Court?

Mr. Mellish: I understand that this Palace has been thoroughly investigated to see how much extra space could be provided for hon. Members. I think that we have reached almost the end of our

tether in that respect. A building across the road would be a Parliamentary building which would be for the benefit of hon. Members and officers and so on. The whole question is whether the traffic could be routed in such a way as to make it convenient for hon. Members to use some accommodation and I gather that that is the argument now before the Services Committee.

Balance of Trade

Mr. Gresham Cooke: asked the Minister of Public Building and Works (1) whether, in view of the necessity of improving the balance of trade, he will circularise all architects and engineers drawing up plans for buildings for which his department is responsible, to ensure that wherever possible indigenous materials are used for such buildings and the use of imported materials reduced to a minimum; and whether there are existing instructions to architects and engineers in this connection, and of what nature;

(2) whether, in view of the necessity of improving the balance of trade, he will circularise all architects and engineers drawing up plans for new Post Office buildings instructing them to ensure that wherever possible indigenous materials are used for such buildings and the use of imported materials reduced to a minimum; and whether there are existing instructions to architects and engineers in this connection, and of what nature.

Mr. Mellish: Professional officers responsible for the building work undertaken by my Department—including work for the Post Office—are already required, before specifying imported items, to ensure that no acceptable home produced alternative of equivalent price, quality and performance is available. Where it is essential to employ imported products, professional officers must use them sparingly and economically.

Mr. Gresham Cooke: Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that if a blitz were made on the subject of imported materials, such as by having plastic tiles instead of wooden floors and sloping roofs instead of timber-supported roofs and plastic pipes instead of copper pipes and so on, there could be savings of hundreds of millions of pounds now spent on imported materials?

Mr. Mellish: The hon. Gentleman must not under-rate the building industry which is a very intelligent industry. The amount of substitution already going on is quite remarkable and I pay tribute to the industry for it. What I have to ensure is that we go on with this process, making sure that we abolish as much importing as we can, although we cannot do so entirely, because we have to honour agreements with E.F.T.A. and so on.

Mr. More: Will the right hon. Gentleman ensure that the Post Office constantly tries to see whether it can find British timber suitable for telegraph poles?

Mr. Mellish: I do not know the answer to that; I will ask my right hon. Friend the Postmaster-General.

Overseas Stations, Persian Gulf

Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: asked the Minister of Public Building and Works what is the value of the work done by his Department for the Armed Forces at and adjoining stations in the Persian Gulf since October, 1964.

Mr. Mellish: About £14,500,000; at Bahrain and Sharjah.

Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: Can the right hon. Gentleman say whether that expenditure is still continuing? Does not the size of this indicate the high cost of the precipitate reversal of Government policy announced recently?

Mr. Mellish: I would put it to the right hon. Gentleman that if we had stayed on in the Middle East we should have been committed to far more money. I understand that at least about £20 million would be spent. I must concede to the right hon. Gentleman that this does not mean, because we are moving out of the Gulf within a certain time, that no more money will be spent here. I cannot give the right hon. Gentleman the exact figures but I am prepared to investigate this and will write to him.

Mr. Shinwell: Can my right hon. Friend say whether, when he ulimately vacates the site for which we have been financially responsible, we will get some financial return for them?

Mr. Mellish: I cannot answer that. My right hon. Friend will know that I am interested in the present. As to what

will happen at the end, when we leave the area, I cannot say, but I will certainly investigate this and again let my right hon. Friend know.

Mr. Biggs-Davison: Would it not have been a good thing for the British building trade and the British balance of payments, if Her Majesty's Government had not turned down the offer of rulers such as the ruler of Bahrain to finance British military expenditure in the Persian Gulf?

Mr. Mellish: The hon. Gentleman is asking the wrong Minister the wrong Question. He had better address his remarks to the appropriate Miniser.

Senior Civil Servants (Office Furniture)

Dame Joan Vickers: asked the Minister of Public Building and Works what will be the cost in 1968 of providing office furniture for senior civil servants; and whether this equipment will be made of British wood by British workmen.

Mr. Mellish: The Department is the purchasing agency for furniture for a wide range of organisations including United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority, hospitals, universities and the Armed Forces and supply furniture on repayment terms.
I expect to spend about £100,000 in 1968–69, and a good deal of this will be resold to these clients. All is made in this country; as much as possible is made of British wood, bearing in mind the limited supplies available.

Dame Joan Vickers: May I ask the right hon. Gentleman whether he would not agree that senior civil servants could give up having new furniture this year? Secondly, can he assure me that a lot of the furniture is manufactured by Remploy?

Mr. Mellish: I cannot answer about Remploy but I will certainly investigate it. My Department is a main purchasing agency. As to whether some of this is from Remploy I cannot say. With regard to the quality of the furniture for civil servants, I hope that they, like everyone else in this country, will realise the problem that now faces us.

Mrs. Renée Short: Could my right hon. Friend give an undertaking that he


will consider purchasing some of this furniture through the prison industries?

Mr. Mellish: I will certainly look at that.

Mr. Scott-Hopkins: is the right hon. Gentleman aware that over 95 per cent. of the timber used in the country is imported? Would he do his best to see whether the Minister of Agriculture could do something quickly to put this situation right?

Mr. Mellish: I am advised that in specifying timbers we follow normal commercial practice. Recent purchases of oak have been British but this is not always possible as supplies of British oak are very limited.

Civil Servants (Accommodation)

Dame Joan Vickers: asked the Minister of Public Building and Works, what have been the cost of providing accommodation for civil servants since 1964; and what is the cost of the accommodation required by the new civil servants, in order to administer the Government legislation passed since 1964.

Mr. Mellish: From October, 1964, to October, 1967, the annual cost of renting offices for Government Departments—other than the Post Office—and of rates, maintenance, services etc., averaged about £50 million. This includes the cost—now running at about £10 million a year—of additional accommodation taken during that period which was obviously necessitated, for some time after October, 1964, by decisions of the previous administration. Under it the number of civil servants grew from about 375,000 in 1958 to over 415,000 in 1964.
Separate figures are not available for the cost of accommodating new civil servants administering legislation passed since 1964.

Dame Joan Vickers: While thanking the right hon. Gentleman for that reply. may I ask him to make every effort to reduce this number? Surely this could be one of the Government's economies?

Mr. Mellish: The hon. Lady is asking the wrong Minister the wrong Question. When civil servants are taken on in any of the Government services my job is to provide accommodation for them. My

policy is to buy rather than rent accommodation, because in the long term it is cheaper for the country.

Fixed-Price Contracts

Mr. Goodhew: asked the Minister of Public Building and Works what representations he has received from builders about the effect of devaluation on fixed-price contracts let by his Department; and what reply he has sent.

Mr. Mellish: I have received representations from the National Federation of Building Trades Employers and the Federation of Master Builders, and I have said that, if there are exceptional cases of hardship on firm price Ministry contracts, my Department would be prepared to consider makingex-gratiapayments if it can be shown that losses on the contract as a whole have been suffered as a direct result of devaluation.

Mr. Goodhew: Would the right hon. Gentleman not agree with Mr. Kirby Laing of the N.F.B.T.E. when he says that the Government-imposed charges like S.E.T. and devaluation undermine the whole basis of fixed-price contracts, which were urged by Banwell, and which he, with his Ministry, supposedly, supports?

Mr. Mellish: I have great respect for Mr. Kirby Laing and his association, but I do not necessarily agree with their figures. I have said—and I repeat this question—to those who claim to have suffered hardship on the contract as a whole: if they come to us, we as a Ministry will certainly do all that we can to help, but it must be shown that an actual loss has been made on the contract as a whole. I will not give, and I hope hon. Gentlemen opposite will support me, an automatic increase apropos devaluation on all those contracts as a whole. It would not be right.

Mr. Costain: Would not the Minister agree that with the present high Bank Rate a number of small builders are suffering financial hardship? Will he give interim payments when hardship can be proved?

Mr. Mellish: The hon. Gentleman will be interested to know that a meeting has been arranged for 9th February between representatives of the N.F.B.T.E., officials


of my Ministry, and those from the Ministry of Housing and Local Government. These questions will be discussed. There is a great deal of good will and, I hope, understanding on these matters.

Armed Forces (Building Work)

Mr. More: asked the Minister of Public Building and Works what estimate he has made of the level of Government-sponsored building work for Service personnel after the end of 1971, in the light of Command Paper No. 3515; and if he will make a statement.

Mr. Mellish: My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister pointed out in his statement of 16th January that time will be needed to work out the precise implications of the decisions announced in Command Paper No. 3515. I am not therefore able to make any statement at present.

Mr. More: In view of the cuts in the housing programme, announced by the Prime Minister, and the abandonment of the pledge to build 500,000 houses, would the Minister say how it is proposed to house these 70,000 or so Servicemen?

Mr. Mellish: In his statement on 16th January the Prime Minister said that a further White Paper will be published later in the year embodying the precise implications of the decisions taken. With great respect, the hon. Gentleman will have to ask me Questions then.

Construction Industry

Mr. Eyre: asked the Minister of Public Building and Works (1) what he estimates will be the effect upon the construction industry of the measures announced in Command Paper No. 3515;

(2) whether he will now make a statement upon the estimated level of building output in 1968 in the light of Government economic measures of 16th January, 1968.

Mr. Kitson: asked the Minister of Public Building and Works what estimate he has formed of the impact upon the construction industry of Government measures introduced in the current Session.

Mr. Mellish: As I said when I met representatives of the industry on the

16th January, I estimate that the total output of new work in 1968 will still be at least 3 per cent. above that in 1967.

Mr. Eyre: Is the Minister aware that he is confirming the final abandonment of the building targets under the National Plan and also the abandonment of the Prime Minister's solemn pledge about 500,000 new houses in 1970? Would he say whether the industry can expect adjusted targets and adjusted pledges?

Mr. Mellish: I can only say that the hon. Gentleman is far more pessimistic than the representatives of the building industry. I have already met them. The actual estimated output of new work just after devaluation, we thought, would be about 5·5 per cent. But instead, since the announcement was made by the Prime Minister and the Chancellor, we now estimate that this year there will be a 3 per cent. increase—and I am talking of volume at constant prices—over last year. The industry understands this, and the reasons for it. I have been promised its good will and co-operation.

Mr. Chichester-Clark: Can the Minister assure me that the appearance of his name on the back of the Industrial Expansion Bill is a pure formality and that it is not there because he intends to meddle with the industry?

Mr. Mellish: My name is on the Bill and it is no formality. I have been asked questions on this by the industry and I have assured it that, whatever I did on this or any other Bill. I would certainly consult it before I did it.

Mr. Urwin: asked the Minister of Public Building and Works what representations he has received from the construction industry following devaluation and the announcement of curtailment of public expenditure; and what action he has taken.

Mr. Mellish: Immediately following the statement by my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister on 16th January, I saw representatives of the construction industry.
I told them the effect of the reductions in planned public expenditure, and received assurances that the industry would co-operate in the new situation.
I have also urged the industry to seek every opportunity to increase its earnings


overseas, and I have met with a very encouraging response.

Mr. Urwin: I congratulate my right hon. Friend on the speed with which he acted in this very important matter. Assuming that this was a somewhat wide-ranging discussion, was any reference made to increasing emphasis being placed on the use of indigenous materials in the industry, with specific emphasis on brick and stone?

Mr. Mellish: Yes. The industry, I know, is willing and anxious to do all it can in the matters to which my hon. Friend has referred. I should like to pay public tribute to the industry. It has a bad image with the public in many respects because of the odd individual firm which misbehaves, but it must never be forgotten that year after year the output in this industry has been rising, on average, between 3 and 4 per cent. It is doing a first-class job and I intend to encourage it.

Mr. G. Campbell: How can these reductions be reconciled with the Prime Minister's broadcast on 19th November, in which he said that the house building programme would be safeguarded in the measures accompanying devaluation?

Mr. Mellish: I know something about the housing programme, as the hon. Gentleman will be aware. At least half the housing programme is within the private sector over which the Government cannot have any control as far as numbers are concerned. The number of houses completed by the public authorities is the greatest ever known in the history of Britain.

Excavations, Lairg

Mr. Maclennan: asked the Minister of Public Building and Works if he will now take the Chambered Cairn at Ord North at Lairg, Sutherland, into guardianship for the purpose of displaying it to the public.

Mr. Mellish: No Sir. I am awaiting a report on the recent excavations there. When I have this, I will then be able to decide whether the monument merits being taken into guardianship. I will certainly bear in mind the representation made by my hon. Friend.

Mr. Maclennan: While thanking my right hon. Friend for that reply, may I ask whether he is aware of the importance and great interest of archæological sites of this nature, not only to specialists but to tourists in the Highlands? Is he further aware that there is much to be said for speeding up the process of examination and evaluation of the archæological findings in the Highlands of Scotland?

Mr. Mellish: I respect my hon. Friend's keen interest and I assure him that I shall take his representations into account. My Department has already spent £2,000 on excavation and conservation work at this monument and while it may turn out to be of guardianship class it will have to wait its turn, because at the moment there are already more monuments in my future guardianship programme than I can finance.

Lambeth Bridge House

Mr. Kenneth Lewis: asked the Minister of Public Building and Works whether, once his Department has moved to its new office, building from Lambeth Bridge House, he will make the site available for a new hotel which will have one of the best outlooks in London.

Mr. Mellish: No, Sir; Lambeth Bridge House will remain my Department's main headquarters, although staff will be moved from other buildings in London. In any case, we do not own either the site or the building, which is held on lease.

Construction Materials (Import)

Mrs. Renée Short: asked the Minister of Public Building and Works what proposals he has for saving imports of construction materials.

Mr. Mellish: My predecessor asked the Economic Development Committees for Building and Civil Engineering to study this problem and to consider what action can be taken to promote the use of home produced materials. They have already asked the architectural profession to specify British materials wherever these are suitable in price, quality and performance. I have instructed designers employed by my own Ministry to use British materials where cost allows them to do so.

Mrs. Short: I am much obliged to my right hon. Friend for the action which he has taken. However, is he aware that there are proposals to import Italian pumice via a West German firm to make blocks for building? Is he further aware that we have plenty of very good lightweight aggregates in this country and that the lightweight aggregate industry very much needs his support? Will he ensure that these imports are not permitted?

Mr. Mellish: I should be obliged if my hon. Friend would let me have chapter and verse about that matter. I do not propose at Question Time to say that I am aware when I am not. She had better let me have the details, and I will certainly have a look at them.

Mr. Chichester-Clark: Is not chipboard a good example of the kind of industry where the use of a good deal of spare capacity in the home industry might be encouraged?

Mr. Mellish: That is perfectly true. The chipboard industry is under-producing. I understand that there is a possibility of an increase of about 30,000 or 40,000 tons a year. This is the very thing which we should encourage. The cost is not necessarily all that cheaper, but it is British.

Mr. Roebuck: If my right hon. Friend is looking for ways of saving foreign exchange, would he consider the leases which he has on property abroad? Is he aware, for example, that his Ministry spends £100,000 a year in rent on accommodation in Brussels and that the Government as a whole spend £200,000 a year there on rent? Would my right hon. Friend do something to cut this expenditure and not play monopoly with the taxpayer's money?

Mr. Mellish: I am fond of my hon. Friend, but while he was speaking I was trying to see how I could work the Brussels Embassy into this Question. I cannot see how I can do that, and, without notice, I do not propose to try.

Mr. Edward M. Taylor: Is the Minister aware that the devastation of the Scottish forests in the recent hurricane damage has created a unique opportunity to save on the import of timber? Will he ensure that this tragedy is made into a source of profit for the country through

the use of home-grown timber wherever possible?

Mr. Mellish: I respect the hon. Gentleman's question. I will see what can be done to call the attention of the industry to the point which he has made.

Agrément Board (Approval Certificates)

Mrs. Renée Short: asked the Minister of Public Building and Works how many approval certificates have been given by the Agrément Board to date.

Mr. Mellish: Five

Mrs. Short: That is a very brief reply. It would appear that it is not a very high output for the Agrément Board since it was set up. Does not my right hon. Friend think that more use would be made of the Board, perhaps by developers, and so on, if it had teeth put into its possibilities by the introduction of an insurance system, as the French did when they introduced their agrément system?

Mr. Mellish: I share my hon. Friend's concern about the Board. I am sure that they are good people who are doing a first-class job, but only five certificates have been issued up to date. I am told that a further certificate is due to be issued within the next few days and a further 10 by mid-April. What bothers me is that last year alone 300 new products came on to the market, which means that the vast majority of them were never tested. If the Board is to be worth while, more of us must consider seriously how we can make it effective.

Prefabricated Buildings, Bromley Common

Mr. Hunt: asked the Minister of Public Building and Works when his Department expects to complete removal of the prefabricated buildings at Magpie Hall Lane, Bromley Common.

Mr. Mellish: Five houses remain to he cleared on this site. My Department was notified by the local authority on 31st January that they were ready for removal, and I expect that removal of the superstructures will be completed by the end of this month. The concrete bases will then be removed as soon as possible.

Mr. Hunt: I thank the Minister for that reply. Is he aware that as long as they remain they are an eyesore and nuisance on land which is zoned as green belt? I am glad to know that the clearance is being speeded up.

Mr. Mellish: I am much obliged.

Government-owned Offices, Central London

Mr. Chichester-Clark: asked the Minister of Public Building and Works what progress he is making with the allocation of Government-owned offices in Central London as between Ministries; and whether he will make a statement.

Mr. Mellish: The new offices now under construction in Horseferry Road have been allocated to the Ministry of Housing and Local Government and the Ministry of Transport. This will occasion some re-allocation of space in other buildings, including some that are Government owned, but plans for all the moves involved are not yet settled.

Mr. Chichester-Clark: If it is the Government's policy to disperse the Civil Service out of London and reduce the traffic flow, why is the right hon. Gentleman moving the colossus of the Ministry of Transport into central London rather than out of it? What will happen to St. Christopher House?

Mr. Mellish: St. Christopher House will be used by other civil servants. I am not sure of the position concerning the Ministry of Transport, but I understand that it was an advantage to have both these Ministries together as both of them are concerned with environmental planning.

Mr. Pavitt: When does my right hon. Friend expect this building to be completed?

Mr. Mellish: When the workmen move off the site. There have been some delays of which my hon. Friend will be aware. I am glad that all now seems to be well. We had better not start giving any more target dates.

Oral Answers to Questions — CRIMINAL JUSTICE ACT, 1925

Mr. Roebuck: asked the Attorney-General if he is aware of the confusion among the police and Press photo

graphers over the interpretation of Section 41 of the Criminal Justice Act, 1925, arising from the fact that the word precincts has never been judicially defined and whether he will take steps, by legislation or otherwise, to clarify the matter.

The Attorney-General (Sir Elwyn Jones): Although questions have occasionally arisen over the precise extent of the precincts of the building in which a court is held, I do not think that any great difficulty has been caused by this or that legislation is required.

Mr. Roebuck: Is my right hon. and learned Friend aware that, although no great difficulty has been caused, the sort of photographs which may be taken is a constant source of trouble in newspaper offices? Is he further aware that as a general practice photographs are taken within what are thought to be the precincts of the court and that the precincts of the court are blacked out before the photographs are published? This is clearly undesirable. Would he have another look at the matter?

The Attorney-General: I am certainly willing to look at any information which my hon. Friend may send me. The purpose of the legislation is to protect those required to attend court proceedings to prevent interference with the administration of justice and to uphold the dignity of the court. The principles are generally understood, but if my hon. Friend has any particular difficulties in mind I will be glad to consider them.

Oral Answers to Questions — CIVIL AND CRIMINAL CASES (APPEALS)

Mr. Hector Hughes: asked the Attorney-General if he will request the Commission on Reform of Judicial Procedure and Law Reform to inquire into possible ways of reducing appeals in both civil and criminal cases to one appeal, which allows for a mistake by the trial judge, and of avoiding the multiplicity of appeals, which imposes unnecessary financial and other hardship on both litigants and accused persons.

The Attorney-General: Various ways of restricting the avenues of appeal in civil cases were considered by the Evershed Committee on Supreme Court Practice and Procedure and my noble


Friend the Lord Chancellor hopes that it will be possible to implement its recommendations as soon as a suitable opportunity arises. I am not aware of any grounds for altering the present arrangements for criminal appeals.

Mr. Hughes: Does not my right hon. Friend realise that the plurality of appeals is an undue and unfair aspersion on Her Majesty's judges? The assumption is that they make mistakes in court after court and that litigants are drawn from one court to another at their own expense because the judge may be wrong.

The Attorney-General: I am not aware that Her Majesty's judges feel so aspersed, if there is such a word, but the Evershed Committee has considered the idea of a leap-frogging arrangement from the High Court direct to the House of Lords in a limited class of case. My noble Friend hopes to introduce legislation to give effect to that when a convenient time arises.

Mr. St. John-Stevas: Will the Attorney-General concentrate his noted abilities on eradicating the defects in our system of criminal appeals and set his face against the proposal, put forward by Justice, for setting up a new committee to retry all criminal cases?

The Attorney-General: That matter has not been considered yet. It is an interesting proposal, but I share the view concerning the risk that the authority of the courts can be undermined by an excess of review procedures.

Oral Answers to Questions — LAND REGISTRY (FORM B.10A)

Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: asked the Attorney-General how many copies of Form B.10A were sent out by the Land Registry during the last year; how many staff were employed on this work; what was the cost to public funds; how many of the recipients turned out in the event to be the bankrupt concerned; and how many did not.

The Attorney-General: 1,194 forms B.10A were issued in 1967. It is estimated that the work, which was carried out in the nine District Land Registries, would occupy one man for three weeks in a year, with some supervision, at an estimated annual cost of £180. 171

recipients of the form proved to be the bankrupts concerned; 1,023 did not.

Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: Do not the last figures given by the Attorney-General show how inaccurate is the gunnery in respect of this missive? As every one of these forms sent to an innocent person can cause alarm and involve him in difficulties if he happens to be away, will not the right hon. and learned Gentleman reconsider the whole procedure?

The Attorney-General: The purpose of the legislation is to protect creditors and to prevent a bankrupt from quickly selling a parcel of land which he may own, to the detriment of the creditor. The fact that the procedure has worked with the sort of results which I have indicated shows that on the whole it is, I think, a satisfactory procedure. It is just as important for the question of identity to be cleared negatively as affirmatively. I am not convinced that the procedure is unsatisfactory.

Oral Answers to Questions — GAMING (APPEAL COURT DECISION)

Mr. Mawby: asked the Attorney-General what instructions he has given to the Director of Public Prosecutions following the appeal court decision of 29th January on gaming.

The Attorney-General: None, Sir. This decision by the Court of Appeal does not call for any instructions to the Director of Public Prosecutions, who was in no way concerned with the case. I understand that, in accordance with an undertaking given during the hearing, the Commissioner of Metropolitan Police has now sent to the Director a number of reports on cases investigated by the police. These are now being examined by the Director.

Mr. Mawby: I am grateful to the right hon. and learned Gentleman for that reply. Is he aware, however, as long as there is a great amount of uncertainty, it is possible that a number of well-run clubs may founder and crooks take over? Will he ask his right hon. Friend the Home Secretary to go ahead as fast as possible with the Gaming Bill so that the whole position can at least be clarified?

The Attorney-General: I will certainly pass on the hon. Member's suggestion to my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary.

Mr. Alexander W. Lyon: Will my right hon. and learned Friend also pass on to the Home Secretary the suggestion that the gaming law is now in such a state of confusion that it is, perhaps, time for an independent committee again to consider the position and decide whether the Gaming Act as originally drafted is adequate to deal with the present situation?

The Attorney-General: There is, I think, a great deal of concern about the operations of the Gaming Act, and I again will see that my hon. Friend's suggestion is communicated to my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary.

Oral Answers to Questions — TECHNOLOGY

Satellites (Electrical Propulsion)

Mr. Marten: asked the Minister of Technology if he will make a statement on the progress with electrical propulsion for satellites.

The Minister of State, Ministry of Technology (Mr. John Stonehouse): The first experimental model of an electrical thruster has been made at the Royal Aircraft Establishment and preliminary testing will start shortly. Initial research work is being carried out on very low thrust electrical units suitable for maintaining the orientation of a satellite in orbit.

Mr. Marten: Can the Minister say whether there is a firm development programme for this project and how much money is involved in it?

Mr. Storehouse: Yes, there is a development programme on the initial research work. I cannot say exactly how much is being spent on this part of the research as it comes in a wider programme which is costing £3 million a year.

E.L.D.O. (Planned Launchings)

Mr. Marten: asked the Minister of Technology if he will make a statement about planned European Launcher Development Organisation firings in 1968.

Mr. Stonehouse: The European Launcher Development Organisation plans to launch two vehicles in 1968, one, known as F.7, in September, and the second, F.8, in December.

Mr. Marten: Can the Minister say what went wrong with the French second stage of the recent E.L.D.O. launching?

Mr. Stonehouse: There was a fault in the electrical system, which is now being investigated with the co-operation of the French authorities.

Upper Clyde Shipyards (Orders)

Mr. Edward M. Taylor: asked the Minister of Technology if he will make a statement on the order position in the Upper Clyde shipyards.

The Minister of Technology (Mr. Anthony Wedgwood Benn): The estimated value of orders for new ships on hand with Upper Clyde yards at the end of 1967 was £86 million.

Mr. Taylor: Does the Minister agree that the prosperity of the lower reaches is not being shared with the upper reaches and that there is a serious position and redundancy? Can he assure us that the new merger will not be allowed to founder by making sure, if necessary, that sufficient naval orders are available?

Mr. Benn: I am in continual contact with my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Defence concerning naval orders. The order position is disappointing and I know that there is anxiety, but the Upper Clyde group is now well advanced and we hope that devaluation will help the position.

Mr. Small: Can my right hon. Friend state what proportion of orders have been placed on the Clyde by British ship-owners within the total of £86 million?

Mr. Benn: Not accurately without notice.

Mr. Shinwell: What my right hon. Friend has said about orders being disappointing is an understatement of the position. Is he aware that it is reported that the Russians have placed an order for 50 vessels in Japan? Is any attempt being made by the shipbuilders, backed by the Government, to obtain orders from the Soviet Union?

Mr. Benn: The possibility of orders for ships from the Soviet Union was discussed and is very much in mind. If my right hon. Friend asks whether anything has been done, of course the major effort is in reorganisation and as this works its way through, with the advantages of devaluation, we very much hope that the position will improve.

Scientific Officers

Mr. Hector Hughes: asked the Minister of Technology how many persons have been and are employed by his Department on scientific work; the nature of their work; where they have been located during each of the last five years; and to what extent the developments of that work have had an effect on the trade, industry, commerce and employment of the City of Aberdeen.

Mr. Benn: My Department employs some 2.000 members of the Scientific Officer class. Their location and work described in "Technical Services for Industry", a copy of which has been placed in the Library. There have been no major changes in location during the last five years.
Aberdeen, like other important industrial cities and towns, has benefited from their work, though it is not possible to quantify this benefit.

Mr. Hughes: In thanking my right hon. Friend for that reply, may I ask, as most of this scientific product depends not on its weight but on its scientific excellence, whether it would not be possible to spread it more amongst the depopulated areas of. the North of Scotland?

Mr. Benn: Apart from the fact that the Torry research station is near my hon. and learned Friend's constituency and is working on problems connected with fish which concern Aberdeen itself, and there are, of course, other establishments in Scotland, I do not think that it would be right to relocate research establishments to meet the point made by my hon. and learned Friend. What is wanted is new industry, not research establishments for this purpose.

Export Orders

Mr. Bruce-Gardyne: asked the Minister of Technology why it took his Department two months to give clearance

to Messrs George Keith and Son of Arbroath to enable them to tender for an export order to Holland; and what steps he is taking to accelerate procedures in his Department to prevent a recurrence of this delay.

The Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Technology (Mr. Gerry Fowler): This was exceptional and no change in procedures is necessary. The work in checking the design and patent situation should have been completed in four to five weeks. I regret that an error causing a delay of about three weeks upset the priority usual to such applications.

Mr. Bruce-Gardyne: Is not the Ministry of Technology taking this matter rather lightly? Is it not wholly scandalous that two months' delay should prejudice an export order of this nature — two months of delay of pure bureaucracy? What is the Ministry doing seriously to correct this disgraceful sort of delay?

Mr. Fowler: The language used by the hon. Member is a little strong and a little misleading. It was known at the time that this was not a situation in which an export order would be prejudiced, because the Dutch authorities were not likely to take a decision on the equipment, of which the order was a very minor part. until the middle of 1968.

Wear Shipyards (Merger Proposals)

Mr. Willey: asked the Minister of Technology whether he will make a further statement on the merger prospects for Wear shipyards.

Mr. Benn: I understand that the three companies concerned are pressing on with their joint examination of a merger and hope to be able to submit proposals to the Shipbuilding Industry Board shortly.

Mr. Willey: Will my right hon. Friend continue to do his best to press ahead with these negotiations now that we are prejudiced, as, I am sure, he recognises, by the very good progress which is being made in other shipbuilding districts? I appreciate that there are particular difficulties, but we really have to solve them.

Mr. Benn: I share my right hon. Friend's feeling of disappointment. The


consultant's report was available five months ago, but it is a matter for negotiations between the yards concerned, the Shipbuilding Industry Board, and my own Department, and we will do anything we can to help.

Northern Region (Research and Development Expenditure)

Mr. Wiley: asked the Minister of Technology what factors have caused the fall in the amount spent by his Department on research and development in the Northern Region from £2·6 million in 1963–64 to £1·8 million in 1965–66.

Mr. Fowler: Most of the Ministry's expenditure on research and development in the Northern Region relates to defence projects, and such expenditure was at an exceptionally high level in 1963–64; it is not, however, possible without disproportionate effort to identify particular items on which expenditure has subsequently fallen to a lower level.

Mr. Willey: I am obliged for that reply, but will my hon. Friend pay attention to the fact that this sort of research and development is of vital importance to development areas, as all American experience shows it is, and will he do his best to see whether he can steer this sort of development into development areas?

Mr. Fowler: It is the Ministry's policy wherever possible to channel its support to concerns in development areas including the Northern Region, but in the case of major defence research and development projects, which account for the majority of the expenditure, the special capabilities and facilities involved seriously restrict the choice of firms.

Dame Irene Ward: In view of the fact that defence expenditure is being cut, which must, of course, cut research, could the hon. Gentleman say what we are going to have in the North to make up For any cuts which may be made in defence expenditure?

Mr. Fowler: Not all research is in the defence field. In the period referred to by my right hon. Friend in his Question, the Ministry's support, for example, for the Ship Research Association's activities in the Northern Region increased sevenfold.

Sir A. V. Harvey: Would the hon. Gentleman explain why, in view of the cuts in defence which have taken place, largely in the last 12 months, compared with two years ago, the amount spent on research is less than in the two years previously?

Mr. Fowler: Without notice of that question, no. It is a rather different question.

North-East (Research and Development Work)

Mr. Blenkinsop: asked the Minister of Technology whether he will make a statement on the action he has taken to encourage new industrial research and development work in the North-East.

Mr. Benn: Yes, sir. I have asked my hon. Friend the Member for Middles-brough, West (Dr. Bray) to take special responsibility for developing my Department's regional policies in support of the Government's general policies for development areas. With this in mind I am now seeking and hoping to encourage viable projects.

Mr. Blenkinsop: While welcoming that Answer from my right hon. Friend, may I ask if he could say in particular, what use is being made of resources which are already there, on Tyneside, for example, in conjunction with universities? It is very urgent that we should not let these resources lie idle.

Mr. Benn: My hon. Friend will realise that in thinking of regional policy from the Ministry of Technology's point of view we have these sorts of considerations very much in mind. We have increased the number of contracts with I.R.D., and the N.R.D.C. has spent £1·4 million in the North in the last 18 months. In this and other ways we are hoping really to help.

Concorde Aircraft (Radiation Levels)

Mr. Hugh Jenkins: asked the Minister of Tecnology whether radiation levels experienced by passengers in Concorde will be greater than those received in lower flying aircraft; and what maximum dosage is expected.

Mr. Stonehouse: Radiation levels are higher at these altitudes, but are still far too low to constitute of hazard to


passengers' health, except on the very rare occassions when there are severe solar flares. Concorde will carry a device to give warning of these, so that the pilot can descend to a lower altitude and continue the flight.

Mr. Hugh Jenkins: Is it not the case that there will be no opportunity., in the event of a solar flare, for the pilot to descend to a lower level, and, as this is only one of the snags for passengers in supersonic flying, would he not be well-advised to devote the attention of the Ministry to more productive fields which convenience more people and inconvenience fewer?

Mr. Stonehouse: On the first part of the supplementary I am advised that the in-flight device will enable the plane to descend to a height where there will be no danger at all from these flares.

Mr. Onslow: Will the Minister confirm what it, perhaps, more important, that the same applies to the crew, and will he not deprecate the vendetta of his hon. Friend the Member for Putney (Mr. Hugh Jenkins) against the Concorde?

Mr. Stonehouse: We shall have an opportunity fully to debate questions about the Concorde. We are satisfied that there is no health risk involved in this plane's flying. If we had felt that there would be, the whole project would have been stopped a long time ago. There will be no risk to the crew. The amount of danger to which they will be exposed is no more than approximately five X-rays per year.

Hearing Aid Batteries (Prices)

Mr. Lomas: asked the Minister of Technology if he has now decided to refer to the National Board for Prices and Incomes the recently announced increase in the price of Mallory mercury hearing aid batteries—RM 675 H2014;1·4 volts—from 11s. to 16s. 6d. for six; and if he will make a statement.

Mr. Frank Allaun: asked the Minister of Technology what action he will take over the recent increase in price of hearing aid batteries from Is. 10d. to 2s. 9d.

Sir J. Vaughan-Morgan: asked the Minister of Technology whether he will

now refer to the National Board for Prices and Incomes the recent increase in price for the Mallory R.M. 675 H 14 volt batteries for hearing aids as sold by chemists and others.

Dr. John Dunwoody: asked the Minister of Technology what action he intends to take as a result of the recent increase in the price of batteries for hearing aids.

Mr. Benn: My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Economic Affairs and I have decided to refer the question of these increased prices to the National Board for Prices and Incomes for examination, and the reference will be made shortly.

Mr. Lomas: I am most grateful to my right hon. Friend for that reply, but can he also explain why it has taken the Department so long to reach this decision? In view of this outrageous increase in these prices, what action is he taking to ensure that the old prices are still maintained till the Prices and Incomes Board has had an opportunity to consider this matter?

Mr. Benn: I am sorry if my hon. Friend thinks it has taken so long a time to make this reference, but these references are not made lightly, and I think it is right that we should have thought about it very carefully. As to the second point, I am not able to answer offhand how this will operate. I think it is covered by the arrangements with the Board itself.

Mr. Allaun: But pending the Board's report, will the Government countermand the existing price increases, particularly as some of us believe that the Board, while strong against wages, is as weak as dishwater about prices?

Mr. Benn: I will look at the point my hon. Friend has raised about the present price, but I would not accept that we have been slow to refer prices to the Board. Indeed, I myself have referred quite a number of cases, including the recent case of Television Rentals.

Dr. Dunwoody: If my right hon. Friend is not able to freeze the prices of these batteries till the Board has reported, will he at least consult his colleagues at the Ministry of Social Security to see that additional social security benefits are


given, to old folk in particular, to cover the increase of the cost of these batteries which they will have to pay in the weeks ahead?

Mr. Benn: I have promised to look at the point raised by my hon. Friend, but, as my hon. Friend knows, these batteries are not used in the Medresco National Health Service hearing aid.

Mr. Frederic Harris: Has the Minister come to an understanding with the Chairman of the Prices and Incomes Board as to when a decision may be taken as this increase hits hard so many people who can ill afford it?

Mr. Benn: I think the Board is very well aware, in this as in other cases, of the desirability of producing a report as quickly as possible. I have not in this instance met the Chairman. I think that he and the Board must look at the matter independently and report as soon as possible.

Mr. James Davidson: Will the Minister consult the Minister of Health to see if possible, that prescriptions for these batteries can be obtained by those suffering from chronic deafness?

Mr. Benn: That would not be a question for me but since the hon. Gentleman has raised it, I will draw it to the attention of my right hon. Friend.

Mr. J. T. Price: Is my right hon. Friend aware that only three days after devaluation was announced I was supplied with a copy of an invoice which was issued by a large firm of merchants for a piece of apparatus supplied to a London hospital for biological research and which carried with it a surcharge for devaluation—printed on the invoice—of 17½ per cent.? Is my right hon. Friend further aware that I handed that document to the Treasury, and that, so far as I am aware, nothing has been done about it up to now?

Mr. Benn: That is a separate question, but if the Treasury did overlook it my hon. Friend's question today will draw attention to it.

Machine Tools

Mr. Edelman: asked the Minister of Technology, in view of the rise in the imports of foreign machine tools by a

third last year over the previous year, what action he is taking to encourage the replacement of types of machine tools hitherto imported from abroad by British-made machine tools.

Mr. Benn: My Department's £6 million preproduction order scheme is encouraging the development and production of advanced types of British machine tools. In addition, the Government are now making available to the Machine Tool Economic Development Committee, certain Customs and Excise information relating to substantial machine tools imports to help identify the reasons for them and the prospects of supply from Britain.

Mr. Edelman: But is not one of the reasons for the startling rise in imports of machine tools last year, at a time when exports went up by only 10 per cent., the deplorable practice inside the machine tool industry of certain manufacturers acting as factors and agents for foreign firms? Is that not a major reason for this rise in the imports of machine tools?

Mr. Benn: It is a fact that the machine tool industry has operated on that basis. In some cases, the manufacture of machine tools has arisen from those who began importing them. But the dangers of a double interest here are well known to the industry, and I am grateful to my hon. Friend for drawing attention to them.

E.L.D.O. and E.S.R.O. (Contributions)

Mr. Hooley: asked the Minister of Technology what is the estimated British contribution to the European Launcher Development Organisation and the European Space Research Organisation in 1968–69 and 1969–70; and how this will be affected by devaluation.

Mr. Stonehouse: The estimated contributions to the European Launcher Development Organisation in 1968–69 and 1969–70 are £9·9 million and £8 million respectively. These figures make no allowance for the effects of devaluation, negotiations on which are in progress with our European colleagues.
The contribution for the European Space Research Organisation for 1968–69 amounts to £5·25 million, this is, of


course, within the responsibility of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Education and Science.

Mr. Hooley: In view of the importance of these two organisations for the future development of a European communications satellite system. will my hon. Friend give an assurance that we shall not reduce our net contribution and will make up any effect of devaluation?

Mr. Stonehouse: I cannot give that assurance, because we have to look very carefully at the amount which we spend on the space programme. There are very many other demands on our resources.

Mr. Marten: Are we spending more on a national space programme than on these two international organisations?

Mr. Stonehouse: We are spending more on our investment on work being done in conjunction with our European friends than we do at home.

Several Hon. Membersrose—

Mr. Speaker: Order. Mr. Mayhew. Private Notice Question.

G.E.C./A.E.I. MERGER

Mr. Mayhew (by Private Notice): Mr. Mayhew (by Private Notice) asked the President of the Board of Trade what information he received during his examination of the G.E.C./A.E.I. merger about the impending closure of the A.E.I. factory in Woolwich and what action he now proposes to ensure employment for those made redundant and for the future residents of the new town of Thames-mead.

The Minister of State, Board of Trade (Mr. George Darling): When my right hon. Friend considered the proposal for this merger, he had regard to the broad national interest, and the merger has been generally accepted as serving the national interest.
At that time, no indications could be given about the eventual reorganisation of the factories concerned, although it was clear that there would be some closures of factories and some expansions, but the Group gave assurances that, as far as possible, these closures, contractions and expansions would be in line with the Government's regional policies.
I understand that jobs are being offered to some of the work people affected in others of the factories of the Group, and my right hon. Friend the Minister of Labour is making available the full resources of his Department to find alternative employment for those made redundant.
I appreciate that this closure will come as a blow to many work people and, in some cases, families of work people who have been employed there for many years.
As for the industrial development of Thamesmead, I can tell my hon. Friend that I will consider any application for industrial development certificates there from suitable London firms with strong ties to the area.

Mr. Mayhew: Do I understand from that answer that this decision was not referred to the South-East Regional Planning Council? If not, why not, and will the Minister send it to that Council? Is he aware that there is a great deal of anxiety and strong criticism in Woolwich at this sudden decision, which was taken without adequate consultation, and that it will add to the employment problem already caused by the forthcoming influx of 60,000 new residents to the new town of Thamesmead? Will he tell the House what plans he has for alternative employment for my existing constituents and for the 60,000 newcomers who will start coming in May of this year?

Mr. Darling: On the point about consultation, we have reiterated to the firm concerned the importance that we attach to early discussion of these plans. The firm takes the view that it should announce its plans to the trade unions concerned at the same time as it announces them to the Government. Whether that is the right policy is a matter which we are discussing with them.
As for referring closures of this kind to the Regional Economic Planning Council, we certainly could not refer what are commercial decisions to the Council for it to decide whether they were in the regional interest—[HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."] This must be a matter to be decided by the commercial concerns in consultation with the Government. I am sure that that is the right policy to follow.
As for the provision of new jobs, the present unemployment rate in this part of London is about 1·7 per cent. In view of the fact that the closure will not finally take place until some months have elapsed, we think that we can do a great deal to find alternative work. This is something which we have been able to do rather successfully in this part of London, and we think that we may be able to do it again just as successfully. As I have said, industrial development certificate applications will be considered with these matters in mind.

Mr. Hamling: Is my right hon. Friend not aware that this large amount of redundancy is in addition to that which has already taken place in the London Borough of Woolwich accompanied by the closure of the Matchless motor cycle factory, and that, locally, the people of the borough do not consider that there are ample opportunities of alternative employment? Would he consider receiving a deputation of civic leaders from the borough to discuss the whole question of employment in the area?

Mr. Darling: I am always ready to receive deputations of that kind.

Mr. Frederic Harris: Does the right hon. Gentleman realise that these decisions have also brought about redundancies in high executive positions to men whose ages are such that they will experience difficulty in finding alternative appointments?

Mr. Darling: I am not aware of that, but I understand that discussions about possible redundancies at executive level are taking place with the people concerned.

Mr. Moyle: Is my right hon. Friend aware that if the company continues to handle this problem in the way that it has started, it is likely to go down as a classic case of how not to handle a reorganisation problem? Will he consult with his right hon. Friend the Minister of Labour to see that the company is advised to behave more intelligently in the months to come? Secondly, is he aware that there is no room for manoeuvre in the employment rate in South-East London? Thirdly, is he aware that the London Borough of Lewisham already has far less than its adequtae share of in

dustry, and will he give an undertaking to do what he can to see that that inadequate share is at least maintained?

Mr. Darling: I have said already that we have reiterated to the firm the need for early consultation. On the question of whether this area of South-East London is getting its right share of industrial development, this is a matter on which I would be willing to enter into disputative discussions. However, this is not the appropriate moment.

Mr. Costain: Does the Minister of State appreciate that the Government's policies, including Selective Employment Tax and the like, will encourage comcercial firms to transfer to the North and that they are causing unemployment not only in London but in the whole of the South-East? Will he deny that it is the policy of the Government to do that?

Mr. Darling: Of course I will not. That is what the Government's policy is meant to achieve. As I have said already, the unemployment rate in this part of London is 1·7 per cent. The work now to be distributed from that factory is going to several factories in the North-East and in Scotland, where the need for employment of this kind is very serious.

Mr. Lawson: I am sure my right hon. Friend will appreciate that we all regret hardship caused to anyone in matters of this kind, but will he bear in mind that many parts of our country have had their industry draining away for years, and that we welcome firmness in this connection, which has the object of returning some industry to those parts of our country?

Mr. Darling: Yes, Sir.

Dame Irene Ward: As my constituency will benefit from this transfer, for which I am sure we are very grateful, it had been suggested that there would be transfers from the North-East Coast to the North-West. So that the whole situation may be clarified, can we have attached to the OFFICIAL REPORT the whole decision and an explanation of what is to happen after this merger, including where transfers are to take place, where they are to go, and the whole range of happenings?

Mr. Darling: If the hon. Lady will put down a Question seeking that information, I will give it to her. That would probably be the best way of publicising it.

Mr. C. Pannell: Is my right hon. Friend aware that this is a disaster of the first magnitude to Greenwich, and that I speak from experience, having worked next to that factory before I came to the House'? With all the known devices of planning such as the Board of Trade now envisage them, it is a physical impossibility to clear up this mess in a few months. In effect, what will be the cost at the end of the day, by the time that the Government have paid regional employment grants to take factories to Scotland and then given incentives to bring another firm into the factory which has been vacated? My right hon. Friend must consider this more seriously than his answers today would indicate.

Mr. Darling: These are matters that can be considered. In carrying out regional policies of this kind, we have to take all these factors into consideration. It obviously would be wrong to get a redistribution of industry that was uneconomic and did not make commercial sense. Therefore, we consider all the time what is best both for the regions and in the national interest and we try to balance all the factors.

Several Hon. Membersrose—

Mr. Speaker: Order. Mr. James Johnson—Private Notice Question.

Mr. Mayhew: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I beg to give notice that I shall raise this question again at the earliest opportunity.

HULL TRAWLER "ROSS CLEVELAND" (LOSS)

Mr. James Johnson (by Private Notice): Mr. James Johnson (by Private Notice) asked the President of the Board of Trade if he will make a statement about the missing fishing trawler "Ross Cleveland".

The Minister of State, Board of Trade (Mr. J. P. W. Mallalieu): The House will be profoundly shocked to hear that another Hull trawler the "Ross Cleveland", with a crew of nineteen, has been

lost. News of the tragedy is still reaching me, but I understand that around midnight last night the vessel disappeared from the radar screens of the "Odinn", an Icelandic gunboat, and other trawlers who, like her, were riding out atrocious weather conditions off West Iceland. It would be wrong to hold out hope for the vessel or the crew, and I am ordering a preliminary inquiry which will be followed by a formal investigation. Once again, I have to express my deep sympathy with the relatives of those who have been lost.
I am urgently considering what restrictions should be imposed on the operations of trawlers having regard to their size, the area of operation, the season of the year and their stability and freeboard. I am asking representatives of the trawler owners' associations and the unions concerned to meet me immediately to discuss these matters and any other measures that might be taken forthwith to reduce the risks to which trawlers operating in these arduous conditions are subject.

Mr. Johnson: Is the Minister aware of the total despair felt by the people of Hull over this third tragedy in so few days? I thank him for his sympathy, and I am sure that the whole House will extend to the widows, relatives, dependants and people of my constituency its deepest sympathy at this sad time.
Perhaps I might ask the Minister two questions. First, bearing in mind that the vessel went down in the view of sister ships and an Icelandic patrol boat, does the Minister not agree that there is a serious need now for the utmost care and investigation into the stability and design of fishing vessels, particularly in high seas such as they encounter?
Secondly, will the Minister set up at once a high powered commission on the lines of the Devlin Commission to investigate the fishing industry concerning not only stability and design of vessels, but safety measures as well, the hours and working conditions, and perhaps it might consider a close down of fishing at this dangerous time, which I understand the Canadian fishing fleet does in winter weather? I understand the Minister is meeting a deputation of union leaders and wives tomorrow, and I can tell him that they would demand no less of him when they come to see him.

Mr. Mallalieu: I can well imagine the distress in Hull today, and I repeat my very deep sympathy with those who have been bereaved.
All the questions that my hon. Friend has mentioned will be considered at this urgent meeting I am having with the owners and the unions. Indeed, they are being considered already. We have a working group on safety on trawlers which has been at work for the past six months and I am hoping to have a report very soon. Quite clearly, it seems that more urgent intermediate action must be taken.

Mr. Wall: I associate myself with the sympathy expressed by the Minister on this third terrible tragedy. May I ask the Minister if there is not now evidence to show that all these three ships were overwhelmed in conditions which prevented the use of any known safety equipment? Will he therefore consider calling an international conference to discuss not only the possibility of a closed season in Arctic waters, as has been suggested, but the organisation of an international control, communication and rescue organisation?

Mr. Mallalieu: In fact I.M.C.O. has been considering these matters for the best part of two years, and the first progress report will be available next month, but I will consider whether some further activity is necessary. I cannot say what was the cause of the two previous disasters. It seems obvious that this one was hit with the stern down and a tidal wave coming over.

Mr. Hector Hughes: Does the Minister realise that the disasters that have occurred are a warning not only to the Hull trawlers, but to all the trawlers in the North-East of England and Scotland? Will he say what precautions he is taking to ensure that there are adequate radio connections between the trawlers and the trawler protection fleets in the North Sea and also with the shore?

Mr. Mallalieu: Yes, Sir. On the point of communication, that, generally speaking, is being done. I have two things to say to the House. With all the precautions that one can take, it is not possible to provide absolute safety at sea in certain conditions. Sea states and so forth can be so hazardous that no kind

of precautions, other than staying away from them, can possibly be effective.
I would also say that, tragic as these events are, in perspective it is not that trawlers are being sunk all over the place. In the last twenty years, out of an active fleet of about 600, the number of disasters has been twelve. That is too many, but not too vast.

Mr. G. Campbell: Besides considering the safety of vessels as a whole and the possibility of a close season, which these tragic events have highlighted, will the Minister also give urgent consideration to the question of individual safety measures to try to improve the situation and minimise the risks of fishermen being lost by being swept overboard?

Mr. Mallalieu: Yes. That is exactly the sort of question that the working group is considering. We may have to take some steps immediately.

Mr. Dobson: Does my right hon. Friend agree that there is now a need for his Department to take urgent steps to ask trawler owners not to sail from the port of Hull unless their vessels carry a trained radio operator on board? Secondly, will he have further discussions with the Met Office to ensure that adequate warning of the very disastrous weather that we are experiencing now is received regularly on trawlers?

Mr. Mallalieu: That, of course, is done already. The trouble with that part of the world is that the sea comes up very fast and one may be caught in it however much warning one has.
On the question of radio operators, as I have told the House, we are considering that. But in this instance there was an absolutely first-class radio operator and his reporting was right, but still the vessel went down.

Sir K. Joseph: Will the Minister accept from the whole of this side of the House our deep sympathy for this appalling catastrophe? Can he tell us whether his provisional inquiries show that there is here any change in weather pattern; whether this area is experiencing an un-precedentedly heavy series of overwhelming weather conditions to explain these three disasters in so short a time?

Mr. Mallalieu: I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for his expression


of sympathy. I do not think there is any sign of a change of pattern, but there is not the slightest doubt that during the last three weeks conditions up there have been appalling.

ARMED FORCES (BOY ENTRANTS AND CONSCIENTIOUS OBJECTORS)

3.50 p.m.

The Minister of Defence for Administration (Mr. G. W. Reynolds): I am now able to announce the outcome of my examination of the Latey Committee's three recommendations on boy entrants to the Forces.
I am prepared to accept the first recommendation, namely:
That all boy entrants should be entitled to be released as of right on application within six months (instead of three months) from the date of their entry.
This recommendation will be brought into force by Regulation under Section 2 of the Armed Forces Act, 1966. The details of the arrangements for applying this policy will differ in each Service in accordance with established practice.
I am also prepared to accept the third of these recommendations, namely:
That parental consent to enlistment under the age of 18 should be required.
At present such consent is required up to the age of 17½. If and when the age of majority is reduced to 18 years, this recommendation will be brought into force by administrative action.
I regret, however, that at present I cannot accept the second recommendation, namely, that all boy entrants should be entitled to be released as of right within three months after their 18th birthday. I have considered this matter very carefully. The Forces are unique and cannot be compared with civil industry which is able to bear the easy circulation of labour. It takes a longer time to make an efficient Serviceman, and, with the limited number of suitable men available, it is most likely that, if this recommendation were accepted either in the form proposed by the Latey Committee, or in any substantially similar form, the Forces would be unable to replace their losses, and the ability of the Government to carry out their responsibilities for defence would be seriously impaired. On the other hand,

there are the considerations set out in the Latey Committee's Report and advanced by hon. Members of all parties. These considerations are based on the natural desire, which I share, not to bind young men too tightly to long engagements undertaken in their immaturity
In view of the conflict of these apparently irreconcilable considerations, Her Majesty's Government decided to continue studies by all the Departments concerned to see whether a satisfactory solution can be found to meet both the future defence needs of the country and the principles underlying the Latey Committee's recommendation.
I would like to take this opportunity of informing the House of new procedures for dealing with Servicemen who seek to end their service on conscientious grounds. The existing arrangements have for some time been regarded as unsatisfactory, and I am replacing them as soon as possible.
Under the new arrangements applications from Servicemen for discharge on grounds of conscientious objection will be allowed and will be dealt with in general under a system similar to that used in compassionate cases. Commanding officers will be required to establish the merits of cases which will then be referred to higher authority in the appropriate Service for decision. There will also be provision for applicants whose cases are rejected by the Service authorities to appeal to the Appellate Tribunal, and a successful appeal will be accepted as decisive on the question of conscience.
Once conscientious objection has been accepted as genuine, either by the Service or the Tribunal, discharge will be conditional upon payment of the standard purchase price. The Services will, however, have discretion to reduce or waive the purchase price where financial hardship can be proved.
The advantages of these arrangements are that they provide a fair and reasonable means of judging whether cases are genuine but do not include the penal provisions which, in some cases, are involved in the present procedure. It is hoped that these arrangements will go a long way towards solving what is an admittedly difficult problem.

Mr. Powell: On the Minister's decision on the first recommendation, may I ask


whether he is aware that it appears to us to be a reasonable and useful extension of the initial period from three to six months? As regards the second recommendation, will he accept that it is better to take more time to consider rather than to arrive at decisions which might prejudice the manning of the Forces, already dangerously endangered by the disastrous change in the Government's defence policy? On the third recommendation, may I ask whether his decision means that it will not be implemented unless and until the age of majority is reduced to 18?

Mr. Reynolds: On the second recommendation, which I am unable to accept, I would have liked more time in which to examine it, but I have been under pressure to make a statement. The Government as a whole, and all the Departments concerned, will be looking at this matter. We want to get a lot of information together, and this might take time, but we want to try to find a solution to it.
As regards the third recommendation, the right hon. Gentleman, is right. I intend to introduce this change by Order. if and when the Latey Committee's recommendations are accepted. There is no magic about 17½ or 18. In the Services we are satisfied with 17½, but obviously if the House and the Government decide that 18 should be the age for most other things, we will immediately come into line.

Miss Lestor: My right hon. Friend will no doubt be aware that we welcome his announcement about the two concessions to boy entrants, but when he is considering further representations on this, will he bear in mind that the main recommendation of the Latey Committee dealing with release within three months of a boy's eighteenth birthday was to bring these recruits into line with the legal protection applying to and contained within the Infants Relief Act, 1874? However unique my right hon. Friend may say the Forces are in this respect, these young people are still at a grave disadvantage in law in respect of release from the Forces.

Mr. Reynolds: I would not disagree basically with that, but I must draw attention to the fact that the terms of service

of boy entrants were outside the writ of the Latey Committee. It made recommendations without having any evidence of the effect, on manning grounds, which these would have on the Services.

Mr. James Davidson: While welcoming the minor concessions made in the Minister's statement, may I suggest that it might well take more than six months for a young man to assess his own suitability for a Service career, and that an unwilling Serviceman is perhaps worse than no Serviceman at all? Will the Minister do whatever he can to discourage misleading advertising for recruitment into Service careers?

Mr. Reynolds: I do not accept the latter part of the hon. Gentleman's question, and I do not disagree with the earlier part of it, but we must not over-exaggerate this problem. There was at one time something in excess of 125,000 men in the Armed Forces who joined as boy entrants of one kind or another. Over the last 12 months the National Council for Civil Liberties has been gathering examples of hardship and up to October 1967, covering a pd of 10 years, it discovered 100 cases. This is a small minority, and over the last three years I believe that we have found ourselves able to meet the vast majority of cases. I assure the House that a large proportion of these cases goes to Ministers.

Mr. Maclennan: My right hon. Friend made a surprising assertion that evidence about manning was not before the Latey Committee when it made its recommendations. If he consults the Report, he will see that this is not so, and that some of the evidence which his Ministry put before the Committee was cited.
My right hon. Friend's acceptance of two of the recommendations is very welcome, but will he say whether, in giving this interim judgment on the second recommendation, full account has been taken of the alterations in manning requirements following the cuts announced in January?

Mr. Reynolds: No, Sir, because we have not had time to work these requirements through. Whilst in the past two years it has been necessary to obtain 40,000 recruits a year to maintain the level of forces, the cuts announced last June and July, and speeded, up by the


announcement of my right hon. Friend on 16th January, will still mean that we shall need more than 30,000 men per year as recruits into the Forces during the early and mid-seventies. I have no reason to change my statement about the evidence before the Latey Committee. It had no evidence on manning from the Ministry of Defence. A witness was offered, but he was not required.

Mr. Fisher: Will the right hon. Gentleman ensure that before enlistment boy entrants and their parents are fully aware that they are not entitled to purchase their discharge after the first six months' of service? There is often misunderstanding about this.

Mr. Reynolds: There is often misunderstanding, but I am certain, from investigation and experience, that every attempt is made by service authorities, up to the time when the boy arrives at the establishment to which he is posted, to make clear to him what signing on means, and 'one establishment almost goes to the length of offering him a railway warrant bame if he wants to change his mind at that point.

Mr. Emrys Hughes: If a soldier becomes a conscientious objector as a result of his re-examination of the position, for example if he sees a film on Vietnam, is it any use trying to make a useful soldier of him? Ought not he to be discharged to civilian life, where he can perform useful work in industry? Why does the Minister think that a commanding officer is able to judge conscience? Surely these officers are the wrong people to do that?

Mr. Reynolds: What I have announced is that the application for someone to be released on conscientious grounds will be considered by the military authorities in the first instance. If the application is turned down, without any need for an offence to be committed, which is the rule at the moment in many cases the individual will have the right of appeal to the appellate tribunal set up by the Minister of Labour under the National Service Acts. This is nothing to do with the Services. It has wide representation on it, and we in the Forces will accept its advice as conclusive on whether the chap has a genuine conscientious objection.

Mr. Wall: Does the hon. Gentleman agree that those who join the Services voluntarily form the backbone of the Forces—especially the Royal Navy? Will he, therefore, stand out against pressure coming from the anti-Service section of the community about allowing a right of discharge at the age of 18?

Mr. Reynolds: About 70 per cent. of the entry into the Royal Navy is technically boys. I shall not stand out against pressure for the sake of standing out against it. I wish that we could find an answer to this problem. Other countries have found answers which are probably even more intolerable to my hon. Friends and hon. Gentlemen opposite, and to the country. If we can find a genuine solution which is safe from the point of view of defence I shall be only too pleased to take action.

Mr. J. T. Price: Will my hen. Friend accept my assurance that, although I am in no way anti-Service, I am still extremely puzzled by the fact that although there were all these considerations by the Latey Committee and others I have not yet seen any valid reason why a young Serviceman who enters the Services while still a minor is not given the protection available to the rest of the community, in respect of which the law undoubtedly is that a contract made by a minor before he is 21 can be set aside if it is not to his personal advantage. That is as I understand it. I should like to know what information my right hon. Friend has which causes him to say that this should not apply to people who, perhaps indiscreetly or imprudently, enter the Services when they are still children.

Mr. Reynolds: The short answer is that this is not, in legal terms, a contract, and the method by which it is done was approved by the House less than 18 months ago, when only one hon. Member —my hon. Friend the Member for Eton and Slough (Miss Lestor)—objected. We have to face the fact that if we are to run disciplined Forces, where a unit or a ship has to be prepared to move anywhere in the world at literally a moment's notice, it is not possible to have the normal system whereby any chap can give a week's notice or a month's notice. We must have a stronger form of discipline and of contract, and the form in which


we operate at the moment has been approved and confirmed by this House on successive occasions over the last five years.

Mr. Lipton: Why is no basic change contemplated in the regulations governing discharge by purchase? Am I right in interpreting what my hon. Friend has just said to mean that he will judge each case on a kind ofad hocbasis, on its merits, and that nobody quite knows what the position is when discharge by purchase is applied for?

Mr. Reynolds: My statement dealt only with applications by boy entrants for discharge, who had expressed changed feelings. I made no announcement about a change in the system of purchasing discharges. That is the same as it was. When a man has done three years' service in the Army he is eligible to apply to purchase his discharge. The same applies to the Air Force, and it is about six years in the Navy. The only consideration then is that the manning position in the branch or trade is such that the man can be allowed to go without prejudice to the Service.

PERSONAL STATEMENT

The Minister of State, Ministry of Housing and Local Government (Mr. Niall MacDermot): In winding up the debate on 29th January on the growth of the bureaucracy, I referred to an assertion that the right hon. Gentleman, the Member for Kingston-upon-Thames (Mr. Boyd-Carpenter) had made in a previous debate that there could be saving of up to £75 million in capital expenditure by the abolition of the Land Commission. In my reply I said
 As a former Chief Secretary he ought to to know better than that, and I think he does. It is a phoney figure ".—[OFICIAL REPORT, 29th January, 1968; Vol. 757, c. 1015.]
I then gave the reasons why I thought the figure was misleading.
The right hon. Gentleman has asked me to retract what I said. In so far as my words suggest that he knowingly misled the House, I gladly do so. I have apologised to the right hon. Gentleman for not giving him prior notice that I would refer to him in the debate.

Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: I thank the hon. and learned Member for that courteous apology and withdrawal, which of course I have the greatest pleasure in accepting.

PRIVATE BLACK LISTS

4.5 p.m.

Mr. Tony Gardner: I beg to move,
That this House views with grave concern the growth of private agencies which collect and provide confidential information concerning individuals, a practice which can only be described as blacklisting and which violates the principle that no person is guilty until proved to be so in a court of law, that no person shall be indicted without full knowledge of the indictment and that justice is a public activity and not a private pursuit; and accordingly urges Her Majesty's Government to seek ways of dealing with this manifest threat to the privacy and liberty of the subject.
Nobedy could have been more surprised than I when the No. 66 was drawn from the Ballot Box. Prizes in sweepstakes and even Christmas raffles have always eluded me, and I shall cherish the number 66 for evermore. I am deeply conscious of the privilege which Lady Luck has given me today, and I want to use my time wisely, especially since my hon. and right hon. Friends have already taken a fair slice out of Private Members' Time this afternoon.
There is no need to apologise to the House for raising the subject of black lists at a time when we are gravely concerned about finance, industry, foreign affairs and other great issues of State, because the House has always regarded as its first charge the liberties and freedom of the subject.
The attitude which led me to put down the Motion is, to say the least, slightly emotional. It dates from a long time ago, when a very pleasant half hour on a park bench was interrupted by a rather zealous police constable, who shone his torch upon us and asked for our identity cards. I do not know what happened to the young lady, but the policeman is always with us. The policeman does not always wear a uniform of public authority.
This is International Human Rights Year. Article 12 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights provides that:
 No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to attacks upon his honour and reputation 
and
 Everyone has the right to the protection of the law against such interference or attacks.

I am sure that these sentiments are readily accepted by the House. In May of last year the Nordic Conference of Jurists gave some detailed definitions of these rights. The Conference demanded, amongst other things, protection of the individual against the following
 Attacks on his honour or reputation—being placed in a false light—the disclosure of irrelevant, embarrassing facts relating to his private life—spying, prying, watching and besetting.
Again, I believe that that is a point of view which is readily acceptable in the House.
Modern industrial society thrives on information, however, and, more and more, individuals in this country and many others are becoming identified, investigated, categorised, tabulated and indexed. Furthermore, science has given the faceless men new tools of investigation and new means of recording information which they get. At the press of a button, it is increasingly possible to obtain a great deal of private information both about individuals and about us all as members of groups of one kind or another. If we are not careful we may soon go about our private occasions under the beady eye of the computer.
On 1st December, last year, the hon. Member for Chelmsford (Mr. St. JohnStevas)—to whom the House was grateful—introduced a Motion on the liberties of the subject. Since it was his aim to attack my hon. and right hon. Friends, he did not offer much substantial evidence to justify his Motion, but he could have done, for the State is one of the worst offenders in infiltrating into the private life of the individual.
All of us in the House would condemn the methods used by the Communist countries—by State agencies in those countries—to obtain information, but we have also witnessed what happened in the home of liberty—the United States of America—during Senator McCarthy's heyday. The point is that this kind of activity continues. Perhaps it gets less publicity today, because we have all come to live with the snooper, and we ask fewer questions about him.
The modern State needs information for various purposes—for social security reasons in the case of my right hon. Friend the Minister of Social Security, in order to establish the appropriate welfare


pattern and to make adjustments. In the case of my hon. Friend's Ministry, the Ministry of Labour, the task is to place men and women in the right jobs. This means that a Government do and must amass a great deal of personal information about millions of people which could be used to their disadvantage. I am sure that my hon. Friend and my other right hon. and hon. Friends are conscious of the responsibility placed on them by the amount of personal information which they have, but the mere existence of this information can be a threat.
The test must be, is it all necessary? Obviously, if one is appointing a research worker in an atomic weapons factory his background is important, but I wonder whether it is always necessary to have the kind of background detail which I am told must be obtained when appointing people in other directions in Government service where security is not involved.
The second test must be: is the information available used in a way which threatens the liberty of the individual? Generally in this country, with some remarkable exceptions which have been brought to the attention of the House, this is not the case. The Prime Minister set a good example last year when he announced that he would order the practice of tapping Members' phones discontinued, but the dangers of Government prying are always with us, and the evidence of how these dangers have grown in other countries can give us no cause for comfort or ease.
However, Government agencies are ultimately responsible to someone. At least the investigations of the Ministry of Defence are responsible to my right hon. Friend, who has to answer ultimately for his Department. Questions may be and are asked in the House about problems involving the liberty of the subject in his dealings with Government. It is sometimes difficult to control their activities even then, but how much more difficult it is to control private agencies. It is these that concern me most.
Since the last war, there has been a great growth of private snooping, information gathering and, much worse, information distributing. This is now big business. Hire purchase companies,

credit firms and other trading organisations constantly seek information about present and prospective customers, often from the housing and health departments of local authorities. The man behind with his rent for some reason may be considered a poor credit risk, as may be the man who has had a recent illness. However, fortunately, most of these inquiries are met with a polite but very firm refusal.
But the credit rating system of the United States is rapidly being imported into this country on a scale which makes me shudder. The methods of agencies tracing debtors and assessing credit ratings, and therefore obtaining personal information, are sometimes deplorable. Hon. Members may have seen a report in yesterday'sSunday Mirrorregarding a certain tracing firm. This firm employs teams to trace people who are in debt and, by careful use of the telephone, they can dupe local authority officials and even those in Government Departments into providing personal information, perhaps by suggesting that they are from the Ministry of Social Security or the local hospital inquiring about an accident or a personal problem, and then using the information to identify someone in debt.
The general manager of this firm, when interviewed, said that he had no knowledge of this, and we must take him at his word, but he went on to say:
 But we like to keep our operations somewhat quiet. I used to be in this business on my own, and we have some very keen rivals who would like to know our secrets.
So now we know. This gentleman is conscious of the growing competition to his firm from other inquiry and investigating agencies, which I suggest threatens us all.
However, prying in employment is the greatest danger, which should concern us all. I have here, for example, an application for employment form issued by one of the best-known and reputable retail organisations in Britain, employing thousands of people and with a considerable turnover. The application is for a job as a hire purchase debt collector. After all the usual requests for information like name and address, length of stay at that address, and whether one owns one's own house—all perfectly proper for


someone handling money—it asks the most impertinent question:
 If married, are you living with your wife/ husband?
If this form were given to me and I was not desperate for employment, my answer to that would be "mind your own business."
This kind of investigation by private companies is growing. I am concerned about the amount of information which employers now apparently need—not merely to employ a senior executive, who may, after all, have to entertain other executives or prospective customers at home, but sometimes down to the level of the lorry driver or engineering fitter.
Black lists have always existed, of course. Throughout the history of the trade union movement, employers have tried to blacklist those who are a bit too active. Those who, like myself, have worked in the building industry, have known about this system and fought it. The names of active trade unionists were passed from firm to firm in the local employers' association, and it became impossible to get a job in that town. Many of my friends in the industry had to pack up, bag and baggage, and move home before the war to find employment, buy a new home, and keep their wives and families. This has always been going on.
However, perhaps we looked at it, as trade unionists, rather whimsically, because it was usually inefficient. The associations were localised and the information did not get around quickly, although some powerful employers were more efficient. What troubles us now is the growth and importation of American business methods, together with the science and technology which I mentioned, which has given the blacklister and the confidential industrial snooper new weapons. I do not suggest that many firms in this business are disreputable. I have come across a number, and the people who run them are honourable, operating under the impression that they are providing a perfectly honourable service.
In 1963, my noble Friend, now Lord Brockway, drew attention to the activities of a firm called Security Services, headed by a former Assistant Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police. The firm had

previously been involved in counter industrial espionage, but in 1963 entered a new field. In its publicity material it offered prospective clients the following services:
 Supplying of undercover agents—a man planted among your employees to provide you with complete appraisal of unauthorised happenings … The following of vehicles used by employees in the course of their work … Reporting on any person who may be suspected of causing dissension or inciting employees to disaffection … The screening of prospective employees—a search into their antecedents and background.
As a result of the great deal of press publicity and the intervention of my noble Friend, this insolent circular was withdrawn. But in withdrawing the circular, the director of the company concerned made no apology whatever, believing, quite seriously that this kind of industrial service ought to be provided. How many similar activities are operating today?
These are difficult problems. It is true that dishonest people can move around from firm to firm and from job to job and can perhaps "con" one employer after another, and obviously an employer has to take action to protect himself against the industrial spy and against the dishonest person. But the question which we need to ask is, how far can we afford to let these agencies go in seeking information and providing it to potential customers?
The latest example of scientific blacklisting is offered under the "Name Records Research Index." In its publicity this agency claims:
Use of the Records Research Index will therefore provide information faster than is provided by taking up references in the ordinary way—a practice which some companies have abandoned because of the poor value of the replies received, the expense of obtaining them and the frequent delay incurred in assessing the suitability of an applicant.
The suggestion is that the normal personnel procedure is not adequate for the job, and that those employers who have no adequate personnel facilities need not establish them if they use this firm's service.
The firms which subscribe to this agency can, on the payment of a small fee, check prospective employees against the index. I emphasise that this firm is a thoroughly reputable firm, providing what it considers to be a useful service. The director had the courtesy to come to


the House to meet me today and to discuss with me the problems of the kind of work which he is doing. He is an honourable man, trying to do an honourable business job, as he sees it. It is true that the information which is available to the prospective client includes only identification details—name, address, age, name of last employer, date of dismissal. That is all the information which is contained and, in theory at any rate, it does not seem too bad.
But perhaps I should explain how the service works. The firm which is a member of this agency and which dismisses an employee, say, for dishonesty, fills out a little card which is sent to the agency, and this becomes the basis of the information which will be fed back to another employer who may seek a reference on that person. The information is very limited indeed, and it is fair to say that some of the Press publicity which has been given is a little misguided. I think that this firm was unfairly criticised in that respect. But the definition of the kind of person on whom one ought to submit a card is:
 A person who has been dismissed or asked to leave for a criminal offence, for any wilful dishonest act, or for any wilful act prejudicial to the security of his or her employer.
I should be grateful if any hon. Member could tell me precisely what the latter phrase means. It could be used to include almost anything under the sun.
In its editorial, on 11th January, theSunsummed up the whole situation very well indeed:
 Even if the information is completely accurate, a black list like this is deplorable. Once on the list you are a marked man, not fit to be employed. You may already have been punished for your offence but you are still on the list. How do you work your passage back to respectability?
If a man cannot work his passage back, what is there left for him? A life of crime? But would the information always be accurate? Some employers can be vindictive. In any case, very many other issues arise. Let us take, for example, the question of a cashier who has been suspected of dipping into the till or a milk roundsman whose books may not be quite straight. In some cases it is kinder quietly to ask the man to resign or to dismiss him rather than to prosecute and to have a black mark against his name. But how does this man ever get

the record straight? How does he ever show that the charge against him was untrue if no charge has ever been made in the open? I have always thought it a fundamental principle of English law that no man is guilty of an offence until he is proved to be so in a court of law.
Other issues arise. How does one get one's name off the list, or does it follow the unfortunate person around for the rest of his working life? I understand that this agency is considering setting a limit of three years or so, but the actual length of time has not yet been decided, and even three years is too long in which the unfortunate person is perhaps driven to distraction—three years during which he can be permanently penalised, if this kind of agency and this service grows and eventually covers the whole community. I do not necessarily criticise this firm, but I have visions of what might happen if this kind of service grows throughout the community.

Mr. David Winnick: Is there not a danger that this black list criticism could be extended to include Government Left-wing Members and trade unionists? I understand that Management Investigations Ltd. is run by a former Director of Military Intelligence. It could be used as a general witch-hunt against the Left.

Mr. Gardner: I am grateful to my hon. Friend. I have no knowledge of the background of the gentleman in question, and, as I have no knowledge, I would not like to comment. I do not think that that is this firm's intention. In fact, in conversation today, he told me that that is not the case. But I agree with my hon. Friend that that is a threat which hangs over us all.

Mr. Winnick: Against the Left.

Mr. Gardner: There were problems in the building industry in London, problems involving some people who were thought to be particularly militant and who were suspected of going around from job to job, carrying their militancy with them. This is a very serious problem. How far ought we to go in combating something which we may not like? Should we go to the extent of condemning a man for ever more, perhaps for political reasons, but more likely for ordinary commercial reasons, simply because he


has once committed an offence and we know of no other way of solving the problem?
I should like to ask my hon. Friend for two assurances. First—and this is particularly important—to the best of my information the police do not normally disclose confidential information available on their files, but I ask for a categorical assurance that neither the police nor any public body will be permitted to provide personal information about individuals to private agencies of this kind. Secondly—and this is equally important, and I am even more worried about it—may I have an assurance that neither my hon. Friend's Department nor any other Government Department, nor, indeed, any public body in which the Government have the power to advise and intervene, will be allowed to use the services provided by this kind of private agency.
Perhaps I ought to go further and to ask my hon. Friend to discuss with his hon. and right hon. Friends in Government whether it is not time to set very close limits to the amount of private snooping, collecting of information and supplying of information which goes on in Britain at the moment, because there is much too much of it. Perhaps that might be done by some system of licensing, backed by a code of conduct within which such firms should be asked to operate. Clearly something will have to be done if we are to defend our liberties.
We ought to make it quite clear that these services, though possibly thought desirable on the margin, are not necessary and that we need not sacrifice our liberty for the sake of industrial efficiency. Competent personnel departments ought to be quite capable of assessing the employment capabilities of an individual and assessing his background. In recent years the provisions for recruiting and training personnel staff have greatly improved. My own friends in the personnel service, who have acquired a genuine professional status, tell me that they would be chary of passing on personal records to anyone within their own organisation, much less to anyone outside it. We can, therefore, feel confident that professional departments, manned by experienced personnel officers, are well

run and that the information collected remains secret.
Hon. Members can make a great deal of noise, both in the House and elsewhere, about this and other subjects and bodies like the National Council for Civil Liberties can expose the snooper and blacklister in defending our right to have what I would call anonymity—the right to walk down the street incognito.
In our last debate, an hon. Member reminded the House that we were only 17 years short of 1984. Today, we are a little over two months nearer that date. I fear that the matters to which I have drawn attention in my Motion may be but the portent of much worse to come, if we are not careful. It is said that the price of liberty is eternal vigilance. I hope that the House will agree that liberty at that price is still very cheap indeed.

4.32 p.m.

Mr. John Page: Hon. Members will be grateful to the hon. Member for Rushcliffe (Mr. Gardner) for giving us an opportunity to debate this subject. The longer I am in the House the more I feel that the prime duty of every hon. Member is to defend the personal freedom of the members of his constituency and that that is, above all, his first and most important task. We in this House are the trustees of freedom, and therefore, when there appear to be abuses of freedom, it is important that we should have the opportunity of discussing them.
On the other hand, in view of the flowery words of the Motion, I was expecting the hon. Gentleman to give more examples of what he had in mind. He produced only three, two of which recently appeared in the Press and one of which was raised in the debate we had on this subject four or five years ago. Despite this, perhaps the hon. Gentleman has been pointing to a trend.
As presented by the hon. Gentleman, the discussion appears to be divided into two categories; the status reports provided by private organisations and others in connection with credit-worthiness and trade and the question of service and employment records in connection with employment. The hon. Gentleman did not mention those black lists and records which are kept locked in the two offices


just outside the Lobby, the keys to which are held by only the Chief Whips. Those documents might make extremely interesting reading, but would not be in order in this debate.
Hire purchase and other industrial credit business is now running at about;£1,000 million at any one time, a high figure in any calculation. If we agree with credit trading, which I do, it is obvious that traders must be allowed to defend themselves against defaulters. Otherwise it would be difficult for people who wish to obtain credit to get it. The Consumer Council has recently commented on the subject of credit status and has said that it is the duty of a trader to satisfy himself about the creditworthiness of a potential customer before entering into a transaction. The Council even holds that it is the duty of a trader not to allow a potential customer to obtain more credit than he can reasonably be expected to have. I believe that, in the latter view, the Council goes rather further than I would normally expect to go.
Easily the largest credit rating organisation is that operated by the United Association for the Protection of Trade, a non profit-making organisation formed 125 years ago. It has about 14 million names on its books. It is, therefore, truly a national register. It supplies information on credit to only its members. In addition to supplying that information confidentially, it also supplies confidential information about individuals and companies who have defaulted or have had judgments made against them. On no occasion does the Association issue a black list, although occasionally, I believe rightly, it notifies its members in certain districts if a new trick is being used—for example, a new trick to buy cars on hire purchase—or if a stolen cheque book or some other means is being used to obtain credit. This is, I suggest, a fair means of giving warning. There are a few other quite large private credit rating companies, which seem to operate satisfactorily, particularly those which are based on districts.
The hon. Member for Rushcliffe referred to a report which appeared in yesterday's Sunday Mirrorabout strong arm tactics and other sinister practices being adopted to discover information by a debt collecting company. I believe that

there are one or two small companies—the hon. Gentleman referred to them being spurred on by competition—which perhaps use practices such as calling to collect debts with an alsatian dog, or leaving outside the house a van loudly painted as belonging to a debt collecting firm. These practices are surely undesirable, and I suggest that it is up to national and local chambers of commerce and trade to keep an active eye on the types of agencies which may be used by their members.
I come to the more complicated and controversial question on individual employment records and references. As the hon. Gentleman said, when considering national security, it must be generally accepted that deep positive vetting is necessary in the national interest. However, I wish to mention a more difficult sphere and one in which I had a constituency case three or four years ago. This concerns those who have a special responsibility in the community for looking after—and this arose in my constituency case—particularly young people.
In the instance to which I refer, a man was arrested in my constituency for indecently assaulting a boy. It was later found that, at the time, he was holding the position of house father in a reception centre for delinquent boys. This is so wrong that it is obviously very much in the national interest that double and triple checking of references of people being employed to take up posts of great personal responsibility for individuals, particularly for young people, should be carried out. We must be prepared to submit personal freedoms to investigation in such circumstances.

Mr. Gardner: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way. I accept that in the kind of case he has mentioned this kind of confidential searching must go on, but could he distinguish between that procedure and putting this chap on some kind of list which says, "Do not employ him"'?

Mr. Page: The hon. Gentleman has pinpointed a great difficulty. We want that man on the kind of list which says, "This man must not be appointed to any position where he has the care of young people." That is the great difficulty, and that is where the risk comes. I was only pointing it out as a problem area. It is a


case where the responsibility lies with the Home Office. The Home Office has to take great care and, if necessary, ask for police records to be checked.
It is in the general category of all those who work in business and industry and who are looking for jobs that the kind of black list which the hon. Gentleman described to us is most likely to be used, and would be unjust and very often disgraceful in its impact. The idea of there being a secretdossierwhich the individual concerned has no opportunity of seeing. and from which there is no appeal, is offensive, repugnant and objectionable. Except in the kind of cases I have mentioned, I would disapprove of its use.
If by a mistake in a credit rating in the commercial world a man is unable to buy a television set, it is not the end of the world. but if by a mistake which might well happen, or by a subjective report coming from a previous employer, a man is unable, possibly for most of his working life, to get a job, or the job of his choice, we are in a very dangerous position. I am told by people experienced in the employment agency sphere that employers can make mistakes of from 10 per cent. to 15 per cent. in the records which they send in. Mistakes can, therefore, easily take place.
As the hon. Gentleman said, the only satisfactory way for an employer to examine the suitability of a prospective new employee of any status for the job he has in mind is for him to take up the man's references himself. This is quite easy for an employer who is employing two or three people, but it becomes more difficult if, for some reason, he has to take on 30 or 40 more employees.
If an employer were opening a new factory in a development area he might have to employ 500 or 600 completely new employees at one time. If the company did not have sufficient backing in its personnel department, it would be sensible and justifiable for it to put the whole problem in the hands of a personnel consultant, or an employment agency, who would then interview potential employees and take up their references on behalf of the client.
I hope—and this is the opening that the hon. Gentleman has created by rais

ing this subject this afternoon—that after this amount of publicity a sensible and good employer will insist that individual references are taken up in each case and that there is not merely an exchange of black lists by one agency with another, supposing those to be run. A point to be observed by potential users is that 8 million people change their jobs every year, and a register unless it were on some kind of a national basis, would be completely worthless.

Mr. Winnick: Can the hon. Member state quite clearly that he dissociates himself and his party from that form of black list against people who happen to be politically active on the Left—active or formerly active trade unionists? There is a black list operating now in certain quarters. Does he dissociate himself from such blacklisting?

Mr. Page: If the hon. Gentleman catches your eye, Mr. Deputy Speaker, perhaps he can tell us about these black lists that he says operate in certain quarters, though they were not mentioned by his hon. Friend the Member for Rushcliffe.
The hon. Gentleman's intervention comes very appropriately, because I was about to bring up the question of the taking up of references for those who have been described by both the Prime Minister and the Minister of Labour as being out to make trouble in industry. I have here the report of a speech made by the right hon. Gentleman the Minister of Labour at Gillingham on 18th October last, in which he said:
 There is now little doubt that the Communist Party are plotting to make this a winter of disruption … They now, unhappily for the well-being of the nation, have entered into an unholy alliance with elements of the Trotskyist Party. Their aim, to destroy our hopes of economic recovery…
A little later, the right hon. Gentleman said:
 Unofficial, or totally irresponsible, action in key industries threatens the livelihood of many other trade unionists, not only in those industries, but in many others.
In view of that statement, and as the Prime Minister and the Minister of Labour have been pressed in the House to say who these troublemakers are, can we be told how it is considered that companies, particularly those taking on large new work forces in a development area


or elsewhere, can avoid employing these men whom both right hon. Gentlemen have underlined as troublemakers? We object to the secret blacklist, and I believe that this is the kind of information that employment exchanges would not be able to give.
Again, one finds difficulty when the ordinary reference system of personnel manager to personnel manager breaks down. It can happen that one personnel manager rings up another who is at present employing one of these troublemakers and asks: "You have a chap working for you named so-and-so who wants to work for me. What is he like?" In that case, the currently employing personnel manager will say, "He is a splendid chap. I shall be desperately sorry to lose him but, if he has to go, he has to go"—and then with great glee waits to hear that the man is no longer working for his firm. I should like the Parliamentary Secretary to bend his mind to the thought that the employment of the troublemakers who are out to disrupt industry should be largely in the hands of the trade union officers in the particular neighbourhood. It would be they who would be able to advise a potential employer whether or not a certain man should be taken on.

Mr. Gardner: I am sympathetic to the point of view the hon. Gentleman is putting, but will he accept that some of us on this side of the House do not necessarily agree with either my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister or my right hon. Friend the Minister of Labour about this large group of so-called troublemakers in industry? On at least one occasion I was dismissed from my employment on the ground that I was a troublemaker. Perhaps the hon. Gentleman would venture his definition of the words.

Mr. Page: Many of us who have worked in industry can understand when men are out to make trouble in order to disrupt an organisation as opposed to men who are rightly, or possibly even wrongly, but in their own minds conscientiously and justifiably, fighting an attitude on the part of an employer with which they do not agree. I also feel that perhaps it is not really for me, in my humble position. to give this definition, considering that, on a number of occasions, the Prime Minister, I believe, and certainly the Minister of

Labour, have refused to give their own definition of what is a trouble maker.

Mr. Winnick: Mr. Winnick rose—

Mr. Page: No. I have given way to the hon. Gentleman enough. I ask the Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Labour to give us an answer on this definition and, since we on this side of the House are so often criticised for asking questions without giving answers, on this occasion I am, with some comfort, able to give exactly what our answer would be to this problem. It is that we should stop the cause of it at the base.
I believe that, when the new Conservative industrial policy is enacted and working, there will be fewer unofficial strikes, that official trade unions and their officers will have more respect and more power, and that trouble makers—and people may have different views as to what troublemakers are—will be less powerful and have less of an audience. A fresh wind will be blown through our industrial relations system by the new industrial courts, which will allow appeal against unfair dismissal or against bad treatment of an employee by his employer or trade union. All these things will so greatly improve the atmosphere in industry that the private agencies and private black lists, however strongly they may exist, will not in future have to exist at all.

4.53 p.m.

Mr. Alexander W. Lyon: My heart bled for the hon. Member for Harrow, West (Mr. John Page) when he was skewered on the question by my hon. Friend the Member for Rushcliffe (Mr. Gardner), because he was obviously in the gravest difficulty in trying to define whom he would regard as a troublemaker. That difficulty, of course, is at the basis of the difficulty about a black list. If there is a black list for the purpose of passing on information about who is or is not a desirable employee, someone has to assemble it. If that person is putting into his black list clearly ascertainable information, such as whether a man has had a previous conviction for dishonesty, he can note that as a fact. But if he is to put into the black list men who have not been clearly identified as being dishonest in this way but are merely suspected of being dishonest by a previous


employer, he is in the gravest difficulty because he is taking away a man's character and, indeed, if the black list is widespread, he is taking away any hope of further employment without giving to that individual the right of appeal to any independent, impartial tribunal or observer who can decide whether or not there is any justice in this character assassination.

Mr. John Page: The hon. Gentleman refers to skewers, to troublemakers and people who are dishonest. What would be his view of a man who had, so to speak, led 10 unofficial strikes in defiance of agreements and trade union rules over a certain period? Would that man be considered a troublemaker or not? I suspect that he would be by his trade union leaders and organisers in the neighbourhood.

Mr. Lyon: I have sometimes wondered whether Mr. Jack Dash is a troublemaker in that definition. He certainly causes real difficulty both for the managements and for the unions in the docks, but he is a representative of thinking among some of the men and the plain fact is that he would have no rôle to play if the management-labour relations in the docks were such as to eliminate the necessity for a Jack Dash. He is a symptom of something much more deep and as a result he may be a necessary reflection of the opinions of the men. In that sense, so far from being a troublemaker, he is a kind of valve which allows steam to get out in the open and tell the employers what is going on.
Obviously, therefore, there could be a difference of opinion about a man as notorious as Mr. Dash, whom most people would generally accept and regard as a troublemaker. One cannot lay down clearly definite classifications for individuals unless one is to pinpoint the known facts which are clearly ascertainable, such as a previous conviction. For this reason, black lists are extremely dangerous.
But what is wrong with a black list—and this is where we enter a subject in which I have taken a great deal of interest—is that it is an invasion of the privacy of the individual. It is not simply that it is assembly of known facts

about a man which can be culled by any future employer from Press reports or other easily accessible sources of information; it is an investigation into the background of an individual—into his friends, his marriage and his associates—in order that he can be determined as a likely or unlikely prospect for employment by another firm.
If that is true, it seems to me that this is yet another instance to support the case for some kind of law against intrusion into privacy. This is the third occasion in the last 12 months in which I have spoken in this House on a Motion of this kind and have urged that we should have such a law. It shows the infinite variety of abuses against which such a law would protect us. We should write into the English common law a right of privacy, a recognition of the individual's need to preserve some part of his life from the intrusion of other human beings. Privacy should be protected just as property is protected in the English common law.
We understand the concept of the protection of property. We talk about an Englishman's home being his castle and are very proud of that part of our English common law. It is part of our common law because, in the Middle Ages, that was all people understood about privacy. If one had a home, one could retreat into it, close the door and keep out intruders. That was all one required, because there was a little part of one's life which could be one's own and from which one could keep other people if one wished.
People can now overcome the boundaries of property in order to intrude into one's private life either by an investigation like this for a black list, or by use of mechanical and electronic devices, so that they can now investigate what is going on inside a house even though actually standing outside the property, or by sending newspaper reporters to find out what is going on and publish it in the Press. All these intrusions into privacy mean that the individual's area of life where he can keep himself to himself is being constantly invaded.
We shall never establish a real defence to a person's privacy until there is a general law. In the last 12 months, there has been some movement on this front.
The Nordic Conference of the International Commission of Jurists has produced a report recommending that in every civilised country there should be a right of privacy and spelling out in great detail what that right should cover and saying that it should cover this kind of abuse. The Law Commission in England has already held a seminar at Oxford where a number of jurists and people from the Press, television and radio and others interested in the problem produced a working paper, and it is hoped that the Law Commission will shortly be able to produce a report.
Justice, the British Section of the International Commission of Jurists, has had a committee considering the matter and I hope that it will be reporting some time this year. I understand that its committee on civil liberties is also to produce a report on this very problem in the near future. There is, therefore, a mass of information coming together from which it should be possible to evolve a sensible law which considers those who have legitimate purposes for intruding into the privacy of others, but nevertheless establishes the general principle.
I understand from the Press that a Select Committee was to have considered this whole problem this very Session. It was said that the Leader of the House was to establish a pre-legislation committee whose first step would be to consider invasion of privacy covering topics such as today's. I have been waiting eagerly and expectantly for the announcement of the setting-up of that committee and its terms of reference, but we have heard nothing yet.
I know that the reply to the debate is to come from the Ministry of Labour—I wish that it were coming from the Leader of the House—but if we can hear that this pre-legislation committee is likely to be appointed shortly and to begin to take evidence upon all aspects of the invasion of privacy so as to produce draft legislation which may be acceptable to the majority of hon. Members, we shall be getting a move on. It is about time that we did, because the organisation about which my hon. Friend the Member for Rushcliffe is concerned is already beginning to build a large apparatus for its type of invasion of privacy. In the other aspects of its work, the countering of industrial espionage,

it claims to safeguard privacy and for that reason regularly sends me information about its activities, but some of its activities, particularly this, horrify me, because they extend invasions of privacy and do not protect the individual.
This kind of organisation is building up its operations as a commercial proposition week in and week out and until we have a workable law on privacy, this kind of operation will go on unchecked.
Equally, other invasions of privacy are proceeding apace and it is vitally important that the House should decide in the near future whether English law should be amended in this respect. I therefore hope that we shall have an affirmative answer from the Front Bench indicating that such an amendment is in prospect.

5.5 p.m.

Mr. Ray Mawby: I agree with the later remarks of the hon. Member for York (Mr. Alexander W. Lyon). This subject is tremendously important. As my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow, West (Mr. John Page) pointed out, as Members of Parliament our main duty is to look after the right to privacy and the independence of our constituents. We have many duties, but that is surely our major task. The growth of these organisations denies any cause for joy. They are seeking to provide a service which by their lights they regard as a good service, but if we were to have a Select Committee concerned with the right to privacy and the invasion of privacy, even to the point of being able to consider in advance legislation which might detrimentally affect that right for certain people, there might be many Measures which we would have seriously to reconsider. Some Measures, while helping the majority of people, do some damage to individuals, but if that damage is very small, it can be set on one side. Every day we have to balance the rights of the majority against any damage which may be done to a small minority.
The difficulty with all these organisations, however well they work, is not the definition of who is a trouble maker, but whether mistakes are made and perpetuated. There is no court or tribunal to rectify any damage. We all know,


the laws of slander and libel, but this sort of system is like a whispering campaign in which it is impossible to pinpoint where the damage is first caused and by whom. Even if that is discovered, it is impossible to prove that the person causing the damage did so maliciously, and the laws of slander and libel are therefore inoperative for a person affected by a record which is kept secretly and given only to the customer of the agency. Where there is no State investigation into the method of payment for getting information and there is no way of knowing how the information is obtained, there is great danger that the information will be wrong and will damage a person of the same name from another part of the country. As a result, the wrong man may be denied employment, or forced to live elsewhere.
That is why I believe that the growth of these concerns is to be deplored. There are people who will say that in certain respects these agencies do a first-class job, particularly with industrial espionage. A lot of industrial espionage is brought to an end as a result of the activities of these organisations, it is said. I still believe that the only secret organisations which should exist should be those employed by the Government and those under the very strict supervision of the Prime Minister of the day. It is obvious that any nation needs these services. Even they have to be under very close supervision. These are the sorts of things that we accept with reluctance, because we believe them to be essential evils.
I do not believe that these organisations are an essential evil. There are other methods by which an employer can ascertain the antecedents of a prospective employee. Because of that I deplore the existence of these organisations. How do we deal with them? How does one enact legislation to make certain that if they remain in existence the damage that they can do to individuals is reduced to an absolute minimum? The question of the invasion of privacy has been discussed at an international level by jurists, and I hope that we shall have something to bring forward to deal with this in a form of legislation which will protect the individual and his right to privacy without, as so often happens with the

Acts of Parliament which we pass here, doing exactly the opposite.

5.10 p.m.

Mr. Raymond Fletcher: I am very grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Rushcliffe (Mr. Gardner) for raising this question today. This House is always at its best when discussing the rights and liberties of the individual. If infringements of those rights and liberties affect only two individuals, the House is all the more magnificent in that it finds time to discuss those infringements. It is quite clear, as we gathered from his speech, that my hon. Friend has put his finger on a growing practice which I find not only unpalatable but positively dangerous.
I have no experience whatever of industry, but I do have some slight experience of the art of investigation. To remove certain doubts which might arise in the minds of my hon. Friends, I should say that the type of investigations with which I was once marginally associated, for a very brief period of my life, were entirely legitimate and were concerned with the kind of business activities mentioned by the hon. Member for Harrow, West (Mr. John Page).
I see nothing wrong whatever in the practice in industry of industrialists investigating the credit-worthiness of their clients, or investigating certain other aspects of a business activity which may affect them. As the hon. Member for Totnes (Mr. Mawby) has pointed out, industrial espionage is now a much more serious problem than the James Bond variety of espionage. There are very old-established businesses engaged in this kind of activity, and I regard it as an entirely legitimate and necessary form of activity.
I was once marginally associated with it, and I know very well how a slight error arising from one conversation can creep into a whole set of reports which eventually produce a memorandum and the original error can be magnified in the final memorandum. Where there is no check, no kind of public activity that can be checked, where there is no kind of responsibility to a public authority, this sort of thing can occur. Many an organisation and many an individual can be damned for ever on the basis of something which, had it been made open and


obvious in the beginning, would have been corrected. This is the real danger. Private concerns, and I do not use the term "private" in any pejorative sense, are engaged in this kind of activity, supplying information to employers about potential or actual employees.
All sorts of errors can creep into those confidential reports, and in many cases do. To illustrate how a slight error can grow into a mountain of misrepresentation—I had better do it humorously, because we are all feeling slighty tired at this time of the afternoon—Mr. Malcolm Muggeridge, whom I sometimes think of as one of my own friends until he writes articles in the Sunday Press, and I change the appellation, once pointed out that he was once writing for theNew Statesmanone of those series of profiles which used to enliven that journal.
He was rather stuck for a phrase, and so he just drew out of the top of his head an observation that this particular gentleman, a well-known public figure, was rather fond of music. This crept into the cuttings. Newspapers keep cuttings files and each cutting represents previous cuttings. This gentleman, he may be on the opposite Front Bench for all I know, this gentleman's love for music, invented by Mr. Muggeridge, became an essential part of his public characteristic.
So far did this develop that finally no profile of this distinguished figure could appear without a reference to the number of times that he went to the Royal Festival Hall and studied the more abstruse forms of music, such as written by Schoenburg and so on. All this arose because Mr. Muggeridge had to fill in a sentence, and what started off as a tiny little observation assumed mountainous proportions, in this case to the obvious advantage of the public gentleman concerned, because it is always an asset to he known to be a lover of music.
When we consider that the profiles, or character studies, or essays, as we used to call them, essays about individuals, are built up in pretty much the same way—not by the same sort of people—far be it from me to suggest that Malcolm, or "St. Muggeridge" has he is now called, should do this kind of thing—one sees the danger. Two or three chance remarks can actually enter into a character study

and an assessment of an individual. This I suggest is when an initially slight error can accumulate over the months and years and produce a monstrous wrong at the end of them.
This is why I insist, and I hope that I always shall, that where any person's character comes into question the questioning should be done, as far as is humanly possible, in public, where allegations can be countered, where indictments can be met and where statements and misrepresentations can be corrected. It is no new thing for any Member of this House to feel that he is under a constant process of what I can only call "positive vetting". We are under the eyes of the newspapermen at all times; we are being assessed daily, our characters are being measured and un-measured sometimes in the Lobby; as we speak here or as we do not speak here. This is going on and it is sometimes embarrassing to us, because we are all sterling characters, to find that our own assessment of ourselves is not shared by our friends the Lobby correspondents. But we have the means to correct these mistaken impressions. It is a public activity and we have public methods of correcting misrepresentation.
But it is vastly different for someone in industry who might have made some rather wild remarks at a certain time in his life. Although I am a responsible, semi-public figure, I have made more wild remarks in my life than any Member of the House. Unfortunately, most of them are in print, and, equally unfortunately for me, many of them are frequently resurrected by my hon. Friends. I cannot help that. But imagine somebody who does not have my opportunities to correct the misrepresentations which arise from what was obviously, in my case, a very grievously misspent youth.
I come to my final point. This House spends most of its time considering legislation. I hold the rather archaic view that from time to time it has to discuss another matter of equal importance. There are some things which are simply not done—and I am afraid that I brand myself as a somewhat eighteenth century character when I use that phrase. The branding of people in secret by private organisations which affects their lives and the lives of their families is one of those things which we should say is simply not done. It


is not consistent with the codes and practices of a civilised democratic society. If we do no more than define the limits of what is permissive and say that certain things simply are not done, we render a service which the country has a right to expect from hon. Members.
As to legislation, my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Labour has an impossible task. But every job which he has had to do since he took his job at the Ministry has been totally impossible; he knows that as well as I do. No member of the Government has or deserves more sympathy from me than the junior occupant of that large bed of nails, because in the nature of things the problems which he has to deal with defy solution by legislative processes in 99 per cent. of the cases. But I hope that we can have an authoritative statement from the Minister of Labour and his Parliamentary Secretary that certain practices are growing up in industry which are inimical to the rights and liberties of the subject and they should not be allowed. I hope that we shall get the full force of the Government Front Bench behind the assertion which is implicit in the Motion.

5.24 p.m.

The Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Labour (Mr. Roy Hattersley): My hon. Friend the Member for Rushcliffe (Mr. Gardner) was courteous enough last week to tell me that, although he would deal principally in his Motion with blacklists in employment, he would also wish to deal in passing, or perhaps a little more than in passing, with other related practices which might be described as blacklisting. His courtesy gave me the opportunity of consulting my right hon. Friends the President of the Board of Trade and the Home Secretary on their views about the subjects which more properly fall within their responsibility than mine.
I begin by dealing with the points raised by my hon. Friend about local credit reference bureaux. This is a matter principally for the President of the Board of Trade and I have taken advice from him on it. As the House knows well, credit bureaux exist in many parts of the country. Their incidence and work are growing and spreading, for two reasons. Firstly, because, as hire pur

chase increases, local traders are increasingly in need of some sort of protection. Secondly, because, as hire purchase increases, local traders are increasingly in need of some simple and easy method by which that protection can be given.
My information is that such agencies may supply information of two sorts. First, there is the positive sort which tells a trader that a potential hire purchase customer has a satisfactory or, indeed, excellent credit record. Previous debts have been discharged on time and, therefore, he is in every sense the sort of customer who should be encouraged to take out a hire purchase agreement. Secondly, and I suspect more common is the information requested as a result of some doubt in the mind of the trader. When confirmed the information leads him to believe that the potential customer has a low credit rating.
I agree entirely with hon. Members on both sides of the House who have said or implied that a crucial factor in making a judgment about such services is the places from which and the ways in which the information is obtained. I am advised that in the case of credit agencies information is obtained in a variety of ways, not all of which are known to the Board of Trade. But certainly two sources are known. The first is the public records of county court judgments and bankruptcy cases; the second is trading records of existing or discharged hire purchase debts. I am advised that, while it would certainly be illegal for details of income or family or other personal matters, which may appear on hire purchase agreements, to be passed from hand to hand, there is no illegality involved in the simple reporting of a satisfactory or unsatisfactory completion of a hire purchase arrangement.
I take the view that an application for credit in any form—hire purchase, mortgage, bank loan or anything else—carries with it the overt or implicit assumption that some judgment must be made about the creditworthiness of the applicant. As long as such records are kept up to date and obtained only from appropriate sources and used wisely and prudently I believe, and so does my right hon. Friend, the President of the Board of Trade, that they have two advantages. The first is that they give some much


needed security to credit traders. The second, and, in my view, perhaps more important, advantage is that they prevent families which are already in financial difficulties from taking on additional hire purchase commitments and, therefore, finding themselves in even deeper water.
I have said, and I happily reiterate, that one of the crucial facts by which we must judge any of these schemes is the way in which the information is obtained. This is as important in employment as it is in hire purchase. Several of my hon. Friends have expressed or implied disquiet about the possibility of Government sources being used to provide information for such registers. Let me make two points absolutely clear. There is not, and there never can be, any possibility of the Government's supplying information for such purposes. The second point, which is of equal or perhaps greater importance, relates to the relationship of the police forces with such registers. I know that my hon. Friend is to question my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary about this on the 8th of this month, but, while he will receive more authoritative answers from my right hon. Friend, I think that the debate can be put in perspective only if the rôle of the police force in these arrangements is made very clear now.
As this matter is outside the responsibilities of my Department, I have received advice from my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary, and what he tells me is this. The provision of information from police records is essentially at the discretion of the chief officer of individual forces and it is not a subject on which Ministers are able to give directions. But there are some generally accepted rules and limits. For instance, details of traffic accidents are regularly given to parties in subsequent civil actions. But certainly other information required by other private bodies for other private purposes is not and cannot possibly be divulged by police forces corporately or by individual officers of any force. The Information which a policeman, of any rank, obtains within the course of his duties comes within the scope of the Official Secrets Act. The Act binds serving officers and officers who have retired from the force inasmuch as they are still carrying with them—in a mental rather than

a physical sense—information obtained during their service. That binding is total and irrevocable.
While. an officer is a member of the force, his obligations are norm ally enforced by local police orders. My right hon. Friend the Home Secretary was kind enough to supply me with an extract from the local orders of the Metropolitan Police, the force for which it is the police authority. Those orders point out obligations which all members of the force have under the Official Secrets Act not to divulge to any person or agency information which they have obtained during their duties. By ignoring the orders and the Official Secrets Act police officers would be liable to the most serious penalties and I am assured that no chief officer would hesitate to institute proceedings.
The source from which information is obtained is, in my view, crucial throughout, and crucial in employment also. Before I deal with this, however, I should make it clear that I accept, as does my right hon. Friend the Minister of Labour, that a potential employer has the right to make sure that a potential employee is in all ways suitable for the job which he is about to do.
We certainly take the view that a potential employer has the right to take specific precautions in some specific fields—where, for instance, employment provides special opportunities for criminal activity, where there is access to large sums of money and where there is individual transport of or sole care over large packages or valuable consignments of goods.
The hon. Member for Harrow, West (Mr. John Page) drew our attention to offences against the person about which special precautions would have to be taken. Certainly, I believe that where there is a chance that an individual is peculiarly susceptible to one sort of temptation or another, all reasonable steps should be taken to make sure that he is not constantly presented with that temptation. That seems to be no more than reasonable and no less than just.
It seems to me to be essential, therefore, that examination should be made of character and trustworthiness as far as an examination of previous industrial record can point those things out.

Mr. Winnick: Does not my hon. Friend consider that in many cases there is a great danger that a person who is known to be a non-manual worker and keen to attract other employees into a union would be regarded by a prospective employer as a troublemaker, because many employers are still not keen to have their employees, especially clerical staff people, organised into a union?

Mr. Hattersley: Having heard my hon. Friend's three previous interventions on the point, I have been warned that that is a point on which he requires an answer from me. I will give it to him before I finish.
The examination of individual suitability for a job is the purpose of references. That is what they are for. One of the agencies to which reference has been made claims that it does no more than make the reference system more efficient, that it speeds it up and makes the referee more forthcoming—providing a referee in a more satisfactory way.
Certainly, irrespective of that agency, there are a good many organisations which operate formally or, more likely, informally, which are certainly not controllable by the Government but which operate in some sort of locality and within a certain framework, passing informal information from personnel manager to personnel manager and from works director to works director, about the suitability of individual employees. Clearly, that is not a field in which the Government could intervene were they to choose to do so.
If an individual chamber of commerce discovers at its occasional meetings that names are passed of people who have performed a disservice to their company or who have been responsible for industrial misdemeanour, that is not something which the Government can legitimately talk about and certainly not something about which the Government can take practical action. When, however, the system becomes less informal, when it becomes at best sophisticated and when it becomes organised by private individuals offering the service wholesale andcarte blanche,it is entirely appropriate that this House should consider it and that the Minister of Labour should have a view about it.
It was inevitable that my hon. Friend the Member for Rushcliffe—indeed, many of those who have spoken in the debate—should draw our attention to the Records Research Index of Management Investigation Ltd., whose activities have been so widely reported in the newspapers during the last three or four days.
The intention of that service—and I have no doubt that this was its original intention—was to collect information about individuals and to supply it to employers. Their plans were changed by the discovery that if that simple purpose was carried out they would almost certainly be in legal difficulties and that to supply from one employer to another an account of why a man was discharged might result in the most serious legal penalties. It was for that reason that they limited their activities to a simple list of people. I quote from a report inThe Guardianwhich said that all they aimed to do was to provide "a list of people dismissed in suspicious circumstances". They did not ask the original employer to specify the offence, nor for any details of whether it resulted in criminal prosecution, nor about previous records, but simply the fact that a person was dismissed in specific circumstances. The need to avoid a general description of the reasons for dismissal may well be a legal necessity but, clearly, it opens the possibility of the service being used for a variety of purposes which, I believe, all hon. Members, on both sides, would heartily deplore.
In the hope that I can give all the credit which is genuinely due to the organisation, I ought to say that the organisation is anxious that this should not happen and certainly believes that the cost of the service will prevent malicious notification. The cost of the service is £20 for 10 notifications. It is not my experience—and, I suspect, not the experience of some of my hon. Friends—that at £2 a time, malicious notifications will always appear to be too expensive.
Having said that, however, let me reiterate that certainly such notifications are not the intention of the service and are not in the minds of those who are running it. Indeed, in the notes for guidance which they circulate among participating employers, they ask specifically that the service should not be used for


frivolous or malicious purposes but should be limited
 for use against successful petty criminals … and should not result in a reference of a man who is a bad time-keeper, incompetent, … or in any other way not appropriate for this list.
I reiterate, however, as did my hon. Friend the Member for Croydon, South (Mr. Winnick), that the mere width of definition makes it possible for the service to be misused. It might be misused to include both the militant and the active trade unionist. In my view, the second category is always desirable and the first category is not invariably undesirable. It would be a tragedy were a service of this sort to be seen by unions as a possible threat against enthusiastic participating members. I emphasise it as a possible threat.
Some of the great industrial relations problems which it might cause would not only be caused when the service was used to prevent the employment of a practising trade union militant. Some problems might arise when it was thought that such services might be used to prevent the employment of a practising trade union militant. For those reasons, it produces severe problems in terms of industrial relations—and not only in terms of industrial relations.
It produces problems in terms of the re-employment of ex-prisoners. It is inappropriate for me tonight to go into the merits, demerits, problems and complications of resettlement of prisoners. But, clearly, there may be occasions when a man does not wish his prison record to be known and the knowledge of his prison record might militate against his successful rehabilitation. I feel that I ought to make it absolutely clear that in the experience of my Ministry successful rehabilitation often comes when an employer knows all the facts. But I must also make it clear that my Ministry certainly never divulges that fact without the agreement of the man in question. Certainly we would support the right of a man who has served a prison sentence to seek employment without necessarily having to notify the employer that that was the position.
As for the militant trade unionists, I suspect, as I imagine so does the House, that the rejection of a man as a result of a blacklist is in no small way asso

ciated with fears about the nature of the dismissal in the first place. Blacklisting may well often begin with what a trade unionist, or, for that matter, anybody else, regards as an unjust or inappropriate dismissal. It is our view that if the dismissal procedures in British industry were improved much of the fear of blacklisting would evaporate.
The House will know very well that my Minister's National Joint Advisory Council considered last year the whole question of dismissal procedure. It outlined the features of its ideal procedures, and it expressed the hope that voluntary schemes (some of which already operate) should be extended without statutory provision. It also noted that the Royal Commission on Trade Unions is about to report. It is in fact likely to report some time in the spring. That Commission has taken specific evidence on dismissal procedures. The N.J.A.C., like my right hon. Friend, hopes that, when that report is forthcoming, adequate dismissal procedures will become more general and more accepted, because of the encouragement of its reports. Then many of the fears we have heard outlined today will evaporate.
But even before the Royal Commission's report the Advisory Council felt able to lay down four indispensable features which any scheme should include. They are these: workers and management must know and understand what the dismissal procedures are; in appropriate cases the worker's trade union representatives should be consulted. Wherever possible decision should be taken above the level of the immediate supervisor. There should always be the right of appeal to impartial and senior sources, and that it should be built into the arrangements.
I say again that if the average British worker felt he could not be unjustly or unwisely dismissed most of his fear of blacklisting, which could be a consequence of unjust dismissal, would evaporate, and I hope that with the support of the Royal Commission and others we shall be able to extend that provision.
The hon. Member for Harrow, West (Mr. John Page) must certainly be thinking it is about time I turned to the specific question he asked me at the end of his speech. He asked me what my right hon.


Friend and Ministry of Labour or, for that matter, my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister, really advise industry to do about what he described as known trouble makers. I have to tell him that I think our answer is a long-term answer—not quite as long-term an answer as that one described in the industrial Utopia he quoted, but a long-term answer, nevertheless.
Let me say first of all what we think certainly should not be the answer—that as a matter of civil liberties, as a matter of individual freedom, we should not assume that all members of, let us say, a single political party or a single organisation are automatically, ipso factoindustrial trouble makers. That seems to me to be an illogical and indefensible assumption and in terms of civil liberties absolutely intolerable. Certainly if a trouble maker took action which amounted to an industrial misdemeanour of a form which was criminal, or very nearly so, everyone would expect industry to take stern and appropriate action.
But I believe that the long-term answer is, the encouragement in union members of faith and confidence in, and support for, their official leadership.

Mr. E. S. Bishop: Mr. E. S. Bishop (Newark) rose—

Mr. Hattersley: I will give way in a moment. Secondly, the creation of an industrial organisation that makes that faith in, and that respect for their elected leaders more possible. Before giving way to my hon. Friend, let me give an example of what I mean. When I commended to the House an Order concerned with the decasualisation in the docks I agreed with many of my hon. Friends that one of the great virtues of that Order was that by creating permanent employment we made it possible for the London clocker to be employed in such a way that his shop stewards' organisation was a genuine link between him, the actual working docker, and his legitimate, elected, responsible trade union leadership. By this sort of industrial reorganisation we hoped to create in many industries enhanced status for the official union leadership which, in our view, will certainly result in avoiding the sort of trouble that there has been in recent years.

Mr. Bishop: Will my hon. Friend not agree that a so-called "troublemaker" might want and be able to make improvements resulting in great economic benefits? Looking back to the Tolpuddle Martyrs and William Wilberforce and others, we might have said that they were known troublemakers, but nevertheless, they were responsible for progress, which is sometimes obtained by their means and not obtained by official leaders?

Mr. Hattersley: I agree entirely with my hon. Friend that such a term as "troublemaker" does tempt us towards many pitfalls. But I am sure that he will agree, and I am sure the House will agree, that the use of the term on the occasion he specifies and in relation to the persons about whom my right hon. Friend spoke had a clear and precise meaning. Certainly in that sort of case our long-term answer is to erode the troublemaker's power by making sure that the legitimate and much more responsible trade union leadership has a chance to lead and has a chance to lead reasonably and responsibly.

Mr. John Page: I do not want to press the hon. Gentleman unduly because I do not think it is fair to hang round his neck what the Minister said and the Prime Minister said, but I think we can take it that really he has no suggestion to put to the House how the potential employer, taking on a large group of new employees, could avoid employing a man whom he and his right hon. Friend say they could recognise as a troublemaker.

Mr. Hattersley: I certainly do not have any answer which involves one of two things, first of all his obtaining information about that man from sources which I regard as improper. Secondly, making judgments about that man which might be a reflection on his political opinion but not necessarily a reflection on his industrial responsibility.
I repeat that where there is a friction of misdemeanour, and difficulty, the employer must work with my right hon. Friend and the Ministry in creating the sort of industrial climate which minimises that sort of friction, minimises that sort of difficulty.
Finally, let me say what I think the Government's attitude should be, in relation to this new body, a body which has


clearly brought this matter to the attention of the House and the enthusiasm with which it has been received by British industry. It may well be that this will not be so serious or widespread as my hon. Friend has feared. British Industry Week published by the Confederation of British Industry was, to say the least, unenthusiastic. It reported that as a result of earlier Press comment some firms taking part in the scheme were reluctant to give their names as they knew how unpopular the service had proved
It may well be, therefore, that my hon. Friend is being slightly overzealous. But it is our view that to be overzealous in the cause of civil liberty is no bad thing. If one is to err on these occasions, certainly one should err in that direction. This is not a Resolution which we would urge the House of Commons to reject. It is the sort of Resolution on which the House must properly make up its mind, and one on which the Government is neutral, but benevolently neutral.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,
That this House views with grave concern the growth of private agencies which collect and provide confidential information concerning individuals, a practice which can only be described as blacklisting and which violates the principle that no person is guilty until proved to be so in a court of law, that no person shall be indicted without full knowledge of the indictment and that justice is a public activity and not a private pursuit; and accordingly urges Her Majesty's Government to seek ways of dealing with this manifest threat to the privacy and liberty of the subject.

DESERTED WIVES

5.50 p.m.

Mr. Gordon Oakes: I beg to move,
That this House takes note of the plight of wives separated from their husbands and the urgent need to improve the enforcement and method of collection of maintenance orders.
Any hon. Member who obtains a place in the Ballot for Private Members' Motions is fortunate. In this Motion, I seek to direct the attention of hon. Members on both sides of the House—because this is by no means a party poli

tical Motion—to a section of the community which is desperately unhappy and desperately poor. It is a section of the community which is often forgotten because, although publicly and privately we have sympathy for the aged, the disabled and widows, very often little sympathy is given to wives who have been deserted by their husbands and who find themselves in the gravest financial difficulties.
We do not know exactly how many such wives there are or how many children they have. One can only assess the position, but the numbers are considerable. In a Report published by the Ministry of Social Security in the summer of last year called "Circumstances of Families", which goes somewhat intensively into the poorer-off sections of the community and their resources, paragraph 37 suggests that there are likely to be 100,000 such families with two or more children. That does not take into account those families with one child and those wives with no children who are deserted. So one can assess that the kind of figure in the United Kingdom with which this Motion is concerned is approaching half a million, if one considers the wives and all the children involved.
Since giving notice of my Motion, I have had many pathetic and tragic letters from wives who have been deserted and find that they cannot obtain the maintenance which courts of law have ordered to be paid to them. I do not want to deal with exceptional cases today, because this is a subject where there is no need to gild the lily. What I shall do is to mention a hypothetical but typical case.
The average wage of a man in manufacturing industry is about £22 a week. Let us suppose that he has two young children, which is an average family, and that he gives his wife £15 for housekeeping of that £22 a week, out of which she pays the rent and buys food, fuel, clothing for the children, and so on. Suddenly, that man deserts his wife. He may go off with another woman, he may just leave her, or he may have been cruel to her, with the result that she is forced to leave him.
First of all, there is the shock and numbness of the marriage suddenly ending. A widow, for example, knows that


her marriage has ended because her husband has died. The deserted wife, however, lives in a sort of married widowhood. Her husband has gone, her financial resources have gone, and for some weeks she gets no money except that which the Ministry of Social Security may give her as supplementary benefit.
Then she gets an Order from a magistrate's Court. That is usually based on something between a third and half of the husband's earnings. That is the usual rule of thumb assessment which courts use in deciding the maintenance that shall be given to a wife and family.
A typical order for the wife would be £4 a week, plus £2 per week for each child. From £15 per week housekeeping, suddenly she drops to nothing, and then, when an order is made, to a figure which is just over half that which she received previously. However, still she has to pay rent and buy food, fuel and clothing for the children. All that has happened is that she has one less mouth to feed. The rest of the family has to be cared for still.
In my Motion, I suggest that this subject requires the urgent attention of the House. I do that, first, because of the desperate state in which deserted wives find themselves, where every day is another day's misery. It also deserves attention because we as a nation have been engaged in painfully pruning Government expenditure, and improved means of enforcement would save the Home Office considerable sums of money which are now wasted by committing to prison those husbands who do not maintain their families. In addition, it would save the Ministry of Social Security something in the region of £24 million a year which it pays to wives and their families whose husbands default on maintenance orders.
Another reason why the matter needs urgent attention is because of the excellent Bill introduced by the right hon. and learned Member for St. Marylebone (Mr. Hogg) which increases the amount of maintenance which can be given to a wife, an illegitimate child, or the child of a family. However, that Bill is so much waste paper unless there is adequate enforcement machinery so that the money is paid to the wife and family.
At the moment, two Government Committees are considering related problems

closely connected with this subject, which again points to the urgent need for this House to consider it. The Jean Graham Hall Committee has just reported on levels of maintenance, and the Payne Committee, is considering the enforcement of civil debt.
A great deal of attention is focused at the moment on the Bill dealing with the reform of our divorce law, which is to come before the House on Friday and will be promoted by my hon. Friend the Member for Coventry, South (Mr. William Wilson). However, this is the time to remember that although divorce might seem to be the end of matrimonial troubles, often it is only the beginning. Certainly it is frequently the beginning of financial troubles, and in fact very many High Court orders are enforceable through magistrates' courts, rather than through the High Court.
Let us consider now the wife whose housekeeping money was £15, and who finds that it drops suddenly to £8 on a court order. There are difficulties which she has to face if her husband complies with it, and even greater ones if he does not.
First, apart from the financial difficulties, there is the difficulty of collection if her husband pays the order regularly. The wife has to go to the court, usually at a fixed time during ordinary working hours. Many courts will not send the money by post, except in cases of special hardship or difficulty, and sometimes not even then. They will not even inform a wife who telephones whether money has been paid into court. When she goes down to the court, she has to queue with people, some of whom are paying fines, some of whom are reporting for probation, and many of whom are husbands—sometimes including her own—who are paying money in at the time she is taking it out. Meeting the husband at the psychological moment when he is paying money into court is hardly conducive to any good relationship or any desire on the part of the wife to go to the collecting office. For many wives, the moment of collection is a dread in their lives for the whole week. However, they have to do it because they need the money for themselves and their families.
With your permission, Mr. Deputy Speaker, I will quote the words of a very


eminent social scientist, Professor O. R. McGregor of Bedford College, London University, who has recently conducted a very intensive study on the question of maintenance payments both for illegitimate children and deserted wives and their families. This is a quotation from a speech that he made at the Annual General Meeting of the National Council for Unmarried Mothers and their Children in September of last year, in which he said:
 If you wish to see misery and unhappiness queueing up before you in an abject parade, visit the Court Collecting Office. There are often very grave difficulties facing women who are collecting their payments. Some Courts, for example, will not allow them to telephone in advance to discover if there is any money there for them; they have to come to the Court. This is troublesome and expensive—particularly if it means losing half a day's work. Only a very small number of Court offices are open for payment or collection outside working hours. Some collecting offices open for only short periods on two or three days a week. Some Courts won't send money by post unless there are very special circumstances, such as illness, and in only a very small minority of Courts is there a separate collecting office for dealing with maintenance payments. Normally women and husbands and fathers have to go along and pay in the money or take it out by joining the queue with those paying fines and the rest.
I am not reciting these details of the sort of administrative difficulty that it is very easy to forget about in order to criticise the Courts. It is not that the Court officers are unsympathetic or neglectful. It is very largely that they are desperately understaffed and have to restrict and impoverish the services that they supply because they have not got the staff to provide a better one. You may think that this sort of detail is trivial. It is not. These are the sort of trivia that measure for human beings—most of whom are very poor and most of whom are very unhappy—the difference between dignity and rejection, decency or squalor.
They are the very stirring words of an eminent social scientist who has studied this problem deeply.
The first thing that I want my right hon. arid learned Friend to answer is: why cannot the method of collection at the court office itself be humanised and improved? Why, for example, where a husband is paying an order regularly, cannot that order be paid through a bank so that the wife can collect it from the bank and he can pay it in by standing order, if necessary, and the court can have proof of whether he is paying in by a copy of the bank account? It would relieve

pressure on the courts, it would help the husband by saving him from having to take it in, and it would infinitely spare the wife the misery of queuing to take it out.
I have been talking about the fortunate wife whose husband pays regularly. What if he pays irregularly or not at all, as is the position in the vast majority of cases under court orders? She then has to take out a warrant. She often faces great delay in obtaining the warrant and there is delay in serving it because of difficulties in locating her husband or only on a Saturday.

Mr. Kenneth Marks: If at all.

Mr. Oakes: If at all, as my hon. Friend said. A constituent of mine pointed out that she had been sent from the Ministry of Social Security to the court to take out a warrant. On arrival at the court and being asked where her husband was, she said, "I do not know", whereupon the court officer said, "How do you expect us to serve a warrant? You ought to know." But she did not know, and she had no means of knowing. Therefore, she had to go back to the Ministry of Social Security where she was asked why she had not taken out a warrant.
These are the sort of difficulties that a wife finds herself in—like a ping-pong ball going between one office and another almost begging for money and now knowing where her resources will come from.
As a result of this delay concerning warrants, many husbands owe hundreds of £s—sometimes over £1,000. These are the type of arrears which can accumulate and frequently do in magistrates' courts, because of the delays and difficulties in the present administrative system.
Suppose my hypothetical wife takes out her warrant and she and her husband appear in court. What then? There are three courses. The first is that the husband is ordered to pay the arrears—sometimes hundreds of £s—at a derisory amount of perhaps 10s. per week on top of the order. He probably will not pay it, because he did not pay the order in the first place. Sometimes the court will remit a large part of the arrears, not because the husband could not pay at the


time, but because it seems too burdensome now. What ever the court does in that regard, the wife has lost that money forever, because it will never be paid to her.
Secondly, the court may make an attachment of earnings order. In this House some years ago we thought that might end our difficulties. It does not, because if an attachment of earnings order is made the husband has only to change his job and the wife is back to square one. She has to start all over again by obtaining another order from the court against the new employer. So it goes on and on, with delay and worry and poverty for the wife during the interim.
The third remedy the court employs is probably the most ridiculous of all. It sentences the husband to 42 days imprisonment. When the husband comes out from serving his 42 days' imprisonment that debt is unenforceable against him. It is still an order against him, but it is unenforceable because he has served six weeks in gaol to cover that debt, and it costs the country about £16 a week to keep him in gaol for those six weeks, as well as the cost of social security benefit to his wife and family during that time.
These are the problems. What are the solutions that I suggest? First and foremost, something which will cost nothing, and I know will appeal to my right hon. and learned Friend at the present time: much more flexibility by court officers; more awareness of the problems that these deserted wives have to face; and certainly the consideration of collecting orders paid regularly through a bank instead of to the magistrates' courts, which should relieve the burden on the courts and also the anxiety on the wife.
Another thing that deserted wives desperately need is advice. Often orders made in the early 1950s, and sometimes before, are for what today are trivial amounts, but at the time were considered adequate—say, 30s. or £2 per week. If a wife has never applied to have the order varied, she still lives on that amount of maintenance, even though the husband's earnings have gone up twofold or threefold since the order was made.
I think that courts should advise wives who have old orders that they may have

the right to vary them to a more reasonable and modern level. I think, too—and perhaps my right hon. and learned Friend will deal with this when he replies —that legal aid committees should grant wives legal aid for the variation of an order. They have power to do so, but rarely grant it because they argue that a variation is only a matter of figures, no law is involved, and therefore a wife need not be represented by counsel or a solicitor. But the husband often is represented, because he can afford a solicitor and counsel, and little justice is done when a wife appears herself and applies for a variation order when all the legal battalions are ranged against her on behalf of her husband.
The third thing which I would like my right hon. and learned Friend to consider is the more speedy issue of warrants so that vast arrears do not accumulate. A warrant shold be issued by the court, instead of the wife having to sign a warrant and take it out, where there are arrears of £10, in the same way as the court would recover a fine. This is, after all, a court order which has not been paid, and therefore it should be the clerk's responsibility, when a certain amount of arrears has accumulated, to enforce the order without bringing the wife to court to do it.
There should be closer liaison between the Ministry of Social Security and the court office. Somebody at the court, or at the Ministry, I care not, should be available to advise the wife of the many other benefits to which she may be entitled, such as free milk, free school meals, clothing, and so on. In other words, there should be someone to assist her generally, because she has no one to whom she can turn, and no one on whom she can rely. Someone ought to be appointed to do that job. Perhaps one of the Ministry's officers should have this responsibility, apart from the general responsibility of advising those who need supplementary benefit.
What I have proposed would not require legislation, and would not require a lot of money, but I suggest that there is an ultimate solution to this problem which goes much deeper. It is that when a husband defaults, and the wife is in receipt of supplementary benefit from the Ministry of Social Security, the magistrates should have power to make


an order enabling the wife to collect the appropriate sum of money from the Ministry each week, and the Ministry should have power to deduct that money from the husband's employer. This would ease the burden for the wife.
It would save the Exchequer a lot of money which at the moment it spends on keeping a person in prison for, say, six weeks at State expense. It would relieve the Ministry of Social Security of a tremendous burden, about £24 million a year, which it now pays to the wives and families of husbands who have failed to meet their commitments under an order. It is true that the Ministry would not get back £24 million, because some husbands may be out of work, or sick, but the sum involved is not much less than that which the Government expect to save by the imposition of prescription charges. This would, of course, require legislation, and I hope that my right hon. and learned Friend will consider introducing it to permit the Ministry to deduct the money at source, and to pay it to a deserted wife and her family.
I have spoken for longer than I intended. I would have liked to have discussed the problem of the unmarried mother and her child, which is akin to the issue under discussion today. I would have liked, too, to have discussed the ridiculous situation in which both the husband and the wife find themselves on the question of Income Tax. If we were to consider the income of the child, and not of the mother, we might ease many of the problems which exist today. There is, too, the problem of benefit where the husband is out of work, or is receiving sickness benefit, or wage-related benefit, and where this creates difficulty for the wife. Perhaps other hon. Members will discuss these issues.
I conclude by reminding my right hon. and learned Friend that at the beginning of this Session, in the Gracious Speech, the Government promised that during the Session they would look into aspects of family law. I suggest that the topic under discussion today is an aspect of family law involving the forgotten poor, the desperately needy, and the desperately miserable, which urgently requires the Government's attention.

6.15 p.m.

Mr. Norman Miscampbell: It is a pleasure to congratulate

the hon. Member for Bolton, West (Mr. Oakes) on his choice of Motion. It is a particular pleasure to congratulate him on what those who have been here this afternoon have heard, a comprehensive speech lit by sympathy and obvious knowledge. The importance of the problem is surely recognised by anyone who has had occasion to go to the matrimonial courts, and I intend, in this short intervention, to confine myself strictly to a review of what we can do to make the collection of moneys due under these orders more efficacious and certain.
When one goes to a matrimonial court, one is impressed with the care with which the magistrates apply their minds to the decision about whether an order should be made, but one is also conscious that on other occasions, when they are discussing arrears of orders, or why money has not been paid, they show considerable reluctance in dealing with the problem, because they know all too well that they are trying to solve a problem which is almost insoluble, and they are trying to do something which they have little or no power to enforce.
On occasions one is awed at the amount of arrears involved. The husband may be earning £15 or £20 a week. and perhaps by this time keeping another family. The magistrates can do nothing but write off some of these arrears, perhaps by as much as £100, £150 or £200. This is all very well, but the poor deserted wife watches money being written off which could well come to her, and which she needs.
The other perhaps no less important facet of this difficulty of getting payment is that so often the original sum awarded is less than just. It is agreed to by the wife, or by her counsel or solicitor, in the hope that the lesser sum will be paid, rather than go for what she is really entitled to, in the certain knowledge that there will be default in the near future.
Reference has been made to the size of the problem. The figure that I have been given is between 300,000 and 400,000. The hon. Gentleman thinks that 500,000 people are involved. We know that it is costing £24 million a year in social security payments to those families who are not being properly supported by their husbands. The Ministry


has to pay, and on Friday of this week we are to debate a divorce Bill which, if approved by the House, will mean that more and more payments such as these will become due under court orders.
How can we cope with the reluctant payer and, more particularly, how can we cope with the reluctant payer who reinforces his reluctance by making sure that it is very difficult to find him by moving from job to job? I have at least one temporary solution to the problem—and I emphasise that it is a temporary solution. I do not see why it is not possible to mark the employee's stamped card with a simple endorsement. This would move from employer to employer. The employer would simply be required to notify the court which was endorsed on the card that the man was employed in Bolton, Blackpool, Liverpool or wherever it might be. The employer would be asked to do no more than that. The court which was looking after the matter would receive immediate notification that the man had changed his job. We should not hide behind the undoubted reluctance on the part of the Ministry of Social Security and others to use that procedure, because a great deal of our money is at stake. It would help if there were immediate and up-to-date knowledge of the man when he moved from job to job.
But that must be a temporary expedient. The hon. Member for Bolton, West made some useful suggestions, and I shall echo some of them. but clearly the fundamental change which must come is that collection must be made by the State from the defaulting husband. I first considered whether it would be possible to use his insurance card by putting on an extra stamp or by so marking the card that the employer took the money directly from the man and sent it to the appropriate authority or the appropriate court, but eventually I came to the conclusion that this would not be the best way of tackling the matter for two quite simple reasons. First, we must recognise that employers do not welcome extra clerical work and do not welcome taking money from employees for matrimonial or other reasons. They do not want to be debt collectors. Secondly, there would be a clear disinclination by employers to take on men who were in

those circumstances—and for the man who is paying for two homes, a job is vital. On balance, therefore, that method would be wrong.
It seemed possible not to ask employers to take money from the man but to see that higher contributions were made by the man by putting extra stamps on his card. The money would be recovered in that way. On reflection, however, that would mean that many different stamps of different denominations would be required, and that could lead to endless complications.
In the end, I concluded that by far the best solution was that on which the hon. Member for Bolton. West touched: once the order has been made by the courts, the payment should be made directly to the Ministry of Social Security either through its offices or through the Post Office or by whatever administrative arrangements appear to be the most convenient. It certainly should not be made through the court if we can possibly avoid it. I am reinforced in my view that this is the best arrangement by the fact that at present if the man does not pay, then in nine cases out of ten the Ministry pay, because they have to find any additional assistance which must be given to the family, who are often in financial difficulties. It is therefore not asking the Ministry to do something which they are not doing already. It is simply recognising the practicalities of the situation.
If the Ministry are to pay then, through their solicitors, or officials—and it need not be a solicitor—the Ministry should go to the court to enforce the order. One of the difficulties is that time and time again the wife goes to court, often at the instigation of the Ministry of Social Security, but on each occasion the case is heard by a different bench, there is no continuity, and no bench knows about the promises the man made last time and what he said about getting a job. It would be much better if the Ministry themselves conducted the case in court.
Lastly, the Ministry must take steps to get back the money due to them, and the most simple way would be to use the Income Tax procedure, which means an alteration in the P.A.Y.E. code so that it covers the amount awarded against


the man. The employer would be asked to do no more than he does already. He would simply apply the code to the Income Tax. I know that it always is the objection—and no doubt will be the objection on this occasion—that we must not use the Income Tax system to enforce private debts or any debt which is not strictly between the taxpayer and the taxing authority. I entirely agree that if the Payne Committee suggested that this was a good system of collecting civil debts, I should oppose that suggestion, but we can make a clear distinction between debts arising from hire purchase and those arising from social obligations by a man to his wife and family.
I hope that a solution on these lines could be found, particularly because this is a time when matrimonial relationships are becoming more lax. I will not go into whether that is right or wrong, but it certainly makes it important that we should safeguard the results of these marriages by stricter financial discipline. Because of the Motion, the House has had an opportunity to debate this important matter, and I congratulate the hon. Member for Bolton, West on bringing it before the House.

6.27 p.m.

Mrs. Lena Jeger: Perhaps a woman may be allowed to get in a few words edgeways in this important debate. I am sure that thousands of women are deeply indebted to my hon. Friend the Member for Bolton, West (Mr. Oakes) for bringing this important matter before the House. The time is so short that I can make only two brief points.
First, it is time that we took the whole question of the payment of maintenance orders away from the courts. To the ordinary person the courts have an atmosphere of criminality. They are the places where one goes when one has done something wrong. It is outrageous, degrading and barbaric that we should attach to the tragedy of a broken marriage the criminality of these court procedures, which continue week in and week out, possibly through the whole lifetime of two people who have already gone through the trauma of a broken marriage. I agree very much with what has been said—that the money should be collected either through the Ministry of Social Security or through the Post

Office. These women ought to have an order book like the family allowances book, which can be cashed and which entitles them to money over the counter without their having to hang around the courts. The present procedure is degrading to them and time-wasting, it is bad for their children, and it is most wasteful of the time of the officials concerned.
The situation is that, whether the Ministry of Social Security want to take on any extra work or not, in fact they are already doing a very large proportion of the maintenance work. The latest year for which I could get figures is 1965, and I should be glad of more recent figures. In 1965, the National Assistance Board, as it was then, paid out over £32 million to deserted and separated wives, and they managed to get back from the husbands concerned only £2,700,000. In other words, the Ministry's funds are being used to keep these families.
Why is that? One of the reasons lies in the simple economic fact of the situation that one wage packet does not divide into the maintenance of two families. Many magistrates know that when they make the order and they know that any attempt to increase the payments from the husband will lead only to the impoverishment of two families. Again quoting 1965 figures, the National Assistance Board helped 104,000 separated wives, of whom 43,000 had maintenance orders; 21,000 of those were being regularly complied with, 15,000 not complied with at all, and 7,000 irregularly complied with. These figures suggest that the whole system is breaking down and that we are continuing an illusion in maintaining the machinery of court orders and attempting the disengagement of the Ministry of Social Security from the heart of the matter. I know that my right hon. Friend does not wish to be regarded as running a Ministry which is mainly a debt-collecting agency, but to a large extent that takes place already.
A more fundamental question which I wish there were time to discuss this afternoon concerns the whole question of the married woman's insurance status. The Beveridge Report went to the heart of this when it said in paragraph 347:
 But from the point of view of the woman, loss of her maintenance as housewife without


her consent and not through her fault, is one of the risks of marriage against which she should be insured; she should not depend on assistance.
There are other references in that Report to insurance against the ending of marriage, whether through the disaster of widowhood through the kind of separation and breakdown which we are discussing.
There will be no sense in this situation until we reconsider the Beveridge proposals for the recognition of housewives as a distinct insurance class of occupied persons, with benefits adjusted to their special needs, including widowhood and separation provisions. That is essential, We are just toying with the periphery of the problem unless we recognise that the breakdown or ending of a marriage through widowhood or other circumstances creates a new relationship of a woman to the National Insurance arrangements which we make.
I hope that, in spite of the shortage of time and the pressures on the Government, consideration will be given to changing the insurance status of the married woman. I hope also that maintenance orders, separation orders and payments can be taken away from the courts and given to the Ministry of Social Security where they belong.

6.34 p.m.

Mr. Anthony Buck: The whole House is grateful to the hon. Member for Bolton, West(Mr.Oakes)of having moved this Motion, and he knows that probably all of us on both sides of the House share his strong feelings on the subject. No one has stronger feelings about the matter than my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for St. Marylebone (Mr. Hogg), who sends his apologies to the hon. Gentleman and the House for the fact that pressing Paliamentary business of a different kind prevents him from attending.
He at any rate has been able, as the House knows, with the help and co-operation of both sides, to take practical steps to do something about this problem. His Maintenance Orders Bill, which has been through Committee, will assist here by increasing the amounts which can be awarded so as to enable the courts, in dealing with the hon. Member's first category—the fortunate ones for whom

an order is made, which is found to be enforceable and is paid by the huband—to make more adequate orders where the financial circumstances of the man permit.
Where I quarrel with the hon. Gentleman slightly is that it is being found that courts are making more considerable orders where the money exists than in the example he quoted. They are moving from the one-third rule, and this is desirable. Perhaps we should consider laying down in legislation a formula to guide the courts; but it is my experience and that of other hon. Gentlemen that the courts are awarding more than a third of the joint income, which used to be the almost invariable rule.
I am particularly grateful to the hon. Gentleman, because all of us involved in the courts and those of us who have constituency surgeries and advice bureaux come across this problem very often. It is a pitiful situation for many of these women. I would like to hear the Solicitor-General's views at the end of the debate. We cannot in this short debate formulate all possible alternatives, though some interesting suggestions have been made.
However, perhaps the Solicitor-General can give us some information about the Payne Committee. It has been sitting for a long time. No doubt he will tell us exactly when it was set up. Before tackling this problem, we need the benefit of the close consideration which presumably it has given this subject. The whole tenor of the debate has shown the complexity of the issues involved.
The hon. Lady the Member for Holborn and St. Pancras, South (Mrs. Lena Jeger) suggested that this should be taken out of the ambit of the courts. One has sympathy with this, and my hon. Friend the Member for Blackpool, North (Mr. Miscampbell) made some interesting suggestions also. These are difficult matters which demand detailed research and it is clear that something must be done. Let the Solicitor-General call upon the Payne Committee, as a matter of urgency, to submit an interim report containing its views. It must by now have a plethora of information and should be able to make up its mind. It should give its ideas on this most important branch of debt enforcement which is causing so much distress. The position in some


cases is near breakdown, so I would urge the hon. and learned Gentleman to call upon the Committee for an interim report as soon as possible, in the next few months, so that we may have proper and detailed information.
Similarly, I hope that he will give us some information on the details which have been raised. The staffing of court offices which deal with the problem is in a serious state. I would be grateful for figures showing to what proportion they are understaffed, since the position varies greatly. Some courts, because their staffing is somewhat more favourable, can deal with the problem with more humanity and flexibility, but I was alarmed to hear that others will not respond to a telephone call. This appals me. Those of which I have had experience are willing to respond to a telephone call from a wife to see if money is available, although I accept from hon. Members opposite that there are court offices which cannot respond even to this. We should hear about the staff position. If it is desperate, as it must be in some areas, what is proposed to be done about it'?
We would like to hear the Government's general thinking on this matter. It is a nonsense that the ultimate deterrent is to send a man to prison for 42 days so that he can purge his contempt. It may be all right for the State but it is of little assistance to the wife to have her husband sent to goal for 42 days, but this probably costs over £100. The wife is thereafter unable to enforce the arrears of maintenance. This situation cannot be tolerated for much longer.
My hon. Friend the Member for Blackpoll, North raised the fundamental question of husbands who seek to evade responsibility by going to another part of the country. He had some interesting ideas to deal with this. But there is one category of deserting husband who makes his position even more secure than the man who goes to another part of the country to earn his living, namely, the man who goes abroad. At the moment we have a degree of reciprocity with certain other parts of the Commonwealth, but it is a cumbrous system and is not working very satisfactorily. I shall not lab our the House with the details.
If a man deserts his wife and goes to another Commonwealth country he is liable to have these enforcement proceedings brought against him, but increasingly, with the mobility of lab our within Europe, the problem arises of people who desert their wives and go to the Continent. I have had two cases in my constituency. This may be happening at a quite high level. Now that we have more and more international companies a man can obtain a considerable position on the Continent —perhaps earning £3,000 a year. If such a man deserts his wife and children, as far as I know there is no way of enforcing the upkeep of his wife against him when he is abroad and she may be forced on to what used to be called National Assistance.
I should like to know the Government's thinking on this matter. There ought to be treaty arrangements with European countries. There would have to be reciprocity, but I can see no objection to that. I should like to know whether anything has been done to get this under way. British companies are forming subsidiary branches in France, Germany and Switzerland to an increasing extent, and many people from Britain go there for employment. If they desert their families to do so no one can touch them.
I should welcome an assurance from the Solicitor-General that he will have talks with his right hon. Friends the Lord Chancellor and the Foreign Secretary with a view to making treaty arrangements, with reciprocity, so that we can deal with this increasing category of men who are outside any Act. Under the procedure in this country we have some hope of getting something from a deserting husband, but when he goes abroad there is no hope. This matter should be rectified. It is urgent.
Everybody would feel that the first charge on a husband's income should be the upkeep of his wife and children. At the moment too many people are able to evade their responsibilities. The mechanism to deal with the problem is, to say the least, creaky. The system is not working well. I should like an assurance from the Government that something will be done about it quickly.

6.45 p.m.

The Solicitor-General (Sir Arthur Irvine): 1 am sure that I speak for the


whole House when I say that my hon. Friend the Member for Bolton, West (Mr. Oakes) has done a service by bringing forward for our consideration the problem of deserted wives. As I listened to him I felt that the quality of restrained eloquence in his speech made it most agreeable.
My hon. Friend has drawn attention to a group of people in our society which is specially subject to hardship and which deserves special attention. He has made clear his view that all too often the existing machinery enables a wife to recover only a small amount of money from the deserting husband, and that such money as is recovered is often colts collected only with undue difficulty. My hon. Friend suggested that the existing machinery of enforcement, by means of attachment of earnings orders and committal to prison, was broadly much less effective than it should be, and that the machinery of collection aggravated the misery of the deserted wife.
In the latter connection my hon. Friend referred to an address on the subject recently delivered by Professor 0. R. Mc-Gregor which, by its content and character, attracted the sympathetic attention of the House. My hon. Friend's basic proposition was that orders should he based on family needs and paid, where-ever possible, by the Ministry of Social Security, which would be responsible for collecting equivalent sums from the deserting husband. I propose to deal with that question at a later stage.
This concept obviously attracted my hon. Friend the Member for Holborn and St. Pancras, South (Mrs. Lena Jeger) and the hon. Member for Blackpool, North (Mr. Miscampbell), but first I want to deal with some of the rather narrower administrative points which have been raised. In doing this I am conscious that it may appear that I am not as responsive as my hon. Friend would like me to be to some of the points he has made and the criticisms he has leveled about the existing system. I can assure him and the House that I am responsive on these matters. If I bring forward certain factors which rather go the other way, my purpose is to try to give a balanced picture of the way in which this procedure operates, so that the situation can be seen as a whole. Although I do not

underestimate the tragic situation in which many deserted wives find themselves, I can say that efforts are made in a variety of ways to mitigate their difficulties, and it is right that in order to present a balanced picture I should refer to some of them.
My hon. Friend proposed that there should be more flexibility in the arrangements for payment by postal cheque. He spoke of the need to improve the method of collection. Under the existing law this is a matter for individual courts. Under Rules 32(2) of the Magistrates Court Rules, 1952, it is provided
 that a clerk to a magistrates' court may send by post any periodical payments to the person entitled to them at the request and at the risk and expense of that person.
Under these provisions a number of payments by post are made, but the House will realise that the courts are not necessarily acting unreasonably if they refuse to make use of this provision. It often happens, in their experience, that a woman who has no bank account finds it difficult to encash a court cheque near her home, or to do so without embarrassment as to its origin. This matter gives rise to highly personal factors which it is right to bear in mind. Moreover, it is important for accounting purposes to ensure that the money is being received by the right person and that receipts for payments are obtained.
It has been found that the making of payments by post involves complicated administrative machinery. The House will appreciate that the burden on the staff of a court, which may be administering as many as 2,000 maintenance orders, is considerable. I understand that courts are increasingly experimenting with schemes for payments to be made by cheque, but it must be remembered that this entails new record systems and other facilities, for which accommodation may not be readily available, and that in some instances the lack of adequate accommodation at court houses and justices offices causes difficulties.

Mr. J. T. Price: Mr. J. T. Price (West Houghton) rose—

The Solicitor-General: Only a few minutes remain and I have a number of points to answer. I trust, therefore, that my hon. Friend will not mind if I do not give way.
Difficulties are created by a lack of sufficient accommodation, especially where the clerk has been unable to arrange for the bulk of payments to be made by post.
In advising local authorities on the pl inning of new magistrates courts, my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary is always concerned to see that suitable accommodation is provided to facilitate th,3 payment of maintenance moneys to deserted wives and those entitled under affiliation orders, but the House will recognise the bearing which existing economic circumstances have on a matter of this kind. I assure hon. Members that my right hon. Friend fully realises the strength of the case presented by my hon. Friend, but I ask that it be appreciated that difficulties stand in the way of doing all that we would wish. We have no power to require courts to adopt a system of payments being made by pest or cheque to a greater extent than they do at present. No undertakings can, therefore, be given about Government action on this proposal. All that I can say is that the courts will, no doubt, be taking note of what is being said in the House on this matter. My hon. Friend suggested that wives should be advised by collecting officers of their rights to vary orders or that they be given more advice than they are under existing processes. 'There is no doubt that advice of this kind is often given. There is also no doubt that wives are frequently ignorant of their rights, and I undertake that consideration will be given to the question of whether improvements may be made in the methods of informing parties of their legal position.
The position concerning legal aid affecting applications to vary maintenance orders is that such applications are entitled under the law to legal aid if they are regarded as eligible by the examining local committee. There are one or two anomalies affecting a small number of cases where legal aid is not available. One is the case of a High Court maintenance order registered for enforcement in the magistrates court. If anybody seeks to vary an order of that kind in the magistrates court, then, by an anomaly, that application is outside the ambit of legal aid. However, this matter has been referred by my noble Friend

the Lord Chancellor to the Legal Aid Advisory Committee.
My hon. Friend referred to the question of automatic warrants and I believe that he had in mind using the word "warrants" in the sense of summonses. He seemed to favour the automatic issue of summonses to bring a defendant before the court as a means of enforcement. The position under Rule 33 of the Magistrates Courts Rules, 1952, is that already there is an obligation on the clerk to give the beneficiary of a maintenance order notice that the order is in arrears by an amount equal to four weekly payments, unless it appears, because of special circumstances, unnecessary or inexpedient for that to be done. Section 52 of the Magistrates' Courts Act, 1952 provides that where payments are being made through a court
… the clerk shall, if the person for whose benefit the payment should have been made so requests in writing, and unless it appears to the clerk that it is unreasonable in the circumstances to do so, proceed in his own name for the recovery of those sums …
This is often done. The House will acknowledge that this is another example of the methods that are adopted to try to help these people—some of these methods being of considerable flexibility and requiring, and receiving, initiative and consideration.
I fear that I do not have time to answer all the points that have been raised in the debate and I will have to gloss over some matters briefly. There is the overall point that if the Ministry of Social Security were to expand its responsibility for the collection and payment of maintenance to all persons subject to maintenance orders, that would be a radical departure from the law and practice, would involve vast administrative difficulties and would really constitute the Supplementary Benefits Commission into something quite different from what its legal and existing purpose properly is.
The hon. Member for Colchester (Mr. Buck) wanted to know when the Payne Committee was set up. It was established in May, 1965. Thus far, the expectation has been, as stated in the House by my right hon. and learned Friend, that its Report would be received by Easter of this year. However, this is now regarded as being a somewhat optimistic forecast. It is now expected and hoped that, at


the best by Easter and, failing that, very shortly afterwards, the Report will be available. It must be remembered, however, that it will deal with a vast number of matters—indeed, with the whole subject of the collection and enforcement of civil debt—and will go far wider than maintenance. In view of the time scale I have put forward, I am sure that the hon. Gentleman will recognise—if the full Report is expected so soon as I have indicated—that there is no occasion here for an interim report to be presented.
The hon. Member for Colchester raised the question of deserted spouses going abroad. It is true that whereas by virtue of the Maintenance Orders (Facilities for Enforcement) Act, 1920, provision is made for the recovery of maintenance in Commonwealth countries, there is no equivalent provision where persons go abroad to other than Commonwealth countries. This is because the reciprocal enforcement of judgments treaties do not apply to maintenance. I readily appreciate the importance of this matter, however, and, to answer the hon. Gentleman's inquiry. I assure him that we will give thought to what he said. This may be an appropriate subject or theme for an international convention, and I assure him that we shall have regard to that.

It being Seven o'clock, the Proceedings on the Motion lapsed, pursuant to Standing Order No. 5(6) (Precedence of Government Business).

SACHSENHAUSEN

7.0 p.m.

The Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs (Mr. George Brown): I beg to move,
That this House takes note of the Third Report of the Parliamentary Commissioner for Administration (House of Commons Paper No. 54).
I first want to pay tribute to the determination with which the hon. Member for Abingdon (Mr. Neave), my right hon. Friend the Member for Easington (Mr. Shinwell) and other hon. Friends who have been supporting him have pursued this matter. I find myself dealing with the Report of the Parliamentary Commissioner with mixed feelings. On the one hand, I applaud the office which

he holds and would like to take some credit for having helped to bring it into existence. On the other hand, I now find myself dealing with a Report which is critical of the Department for which I am responsible. I have strong feelings about Ministerial responsibility which I would like to touch upon later.
Hon. Members will have read the Report, so I will not go over it or try to recapitulate it. I would, however, ask the House to spend a few minutes looking at the case through the eyes of the Ministers in the Foreign Office who have had to deal with it over a large number of years. The case did not begin with me. I came to it, and I admit it quite frankly, predisposed towards the view of the claimants, and there is a Minute from me on the file which has been made available to the "Ombudsman" as we call him, which is quite clear. I wished to be generous and I questioned at that point whether the Foreign Office was being over-legalistic but, having started from that position, I am prepared to accept the responsibility for being satisfied that all the information I needed was supplied to me.
This is one of the grounds on which disagree with the Parliamentary Commissioner. I was satisfied that all the information I needed was supplied to me. I read every piece of paper on the file and I came to my conclusions by my own processes of judgment. That these conclusions were the same as the Department's does not, of course, invalidate them, and that they were the same as every previous Minister's does not invalidate them. I want to make it quite clear that every Minister who has looked at these things has come by his own processes of judgment to the same conclusion.
I believe that all who have handled this case and other similar cases—and I repeat that I am but one of several successive Ministers—have looked at it in two lights; first, in the very human terms of tragedy and suffering which, as we all know, were associated with all Nazi concentration camps and, secondly, in the light of having to administer fairly, and be seen to administer fairly, a scheme for compensation very tightly drawn in cases of great complexity and difficulty, where it was essential that clear rules should be applied.
This particular case was not a matter which could be judged simply by looking


at the human side in conditions of suffering which were immeasurably severe, nor by looking solely at the circumstances of Sachsenhausen. The Foreign Office was dealing with applications from thousands of people who had suffered most cruelly in many ether Nazi camps. It was that terrible backcloth which gave not only the Foreign Office but each of us who has looked at the case a perspective of horror which could not be fully revealed by just assessing the conditions in one camp alone, much less by trying to assess it by reference to one sector of one camp alone.
This difficult problem was further complicated by the need imposed upon U3 by what I call the "Butler" rules—the rules which the then Foreign Secretary kid down which arose from the Anglo-German Agreement which obliged us to distinguish between, on the one hand, those who were held to have suffered the full brutality of Nazi persecution and, on the other hand, those many gallant men and women who were ill treated, and grievously ill treated, as prisoners of war or civilian internees but were not under the rules so regarded.
We must make it quite clear, as I regard, unfortunately—but I was not responsible for it—that under the terms of the Agreement to which I have referred prisoners of war and civil internees were excluded. There are those, including the hon. Member for Abingdon, my right hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Park (Mr. Mulley) and other hon. and right hon. Members, who can themselves contribute to the body of knowledge we have about this, and throughout the period when I have been dealing with this I have, in 'act, had the immediate evidence of my right hon. Friend, who knows at first hand what went on.
This vital distinction which the Agreement makes between what is called "Nazi persecution", which is related to the concentration camps, and the ill treatment of prisoners of war that is held to be a separate thing and is specifically rued out, underlies the argument, if that is the right word to use, which the hon. Member for Abingdon, my right hon. Friend and others and I have had.
The Anglo-German Agreement of 1964, negotiated by Mr. Butler, as he then was, the Foreign Secretary, provided £1 mil-

lion for the United Kingdom victims of Nazi persecution, defined in the very limited terms to which I have just referred, who had suffered loss of liberty or damage to their health or who had died in consequence of such persecution. Whether the Agreement could have been negotiated on any wider basis it is not for me now to say but, of course, I am now in my present office bound by the terms of that Agreement.
In order to distribute the money in this country, the term "Nazi persecution" had to be defined, and Lord Butler, as he now is, decided then that a claimant must satisfy one of two conditions: either he must have been detained in a concentration camp or he must have been in an institution where the conditions were comparable. But, in the very same Agreement, he went on to exclude a large number of institutions where a very large number of prisoners held by the Nazis existed.
We have endeavoured to carry out that Agreement with due regard to its letter and the spirit. I cannot speak for my predecessors but only for myself, but it was always recognised that there would be anomalies. For example, some people who, by good fortune, escaped the worst rigours of a concentration camp, were nevertheless qualified for compensation simply because they had been in such camps.
The Foreign Office took the view—and, speaking for myself, I believe quite rightly—that it would be better to be generous in the small number of such cases rather than risk denying compensation to genuine victims. What I hope the House will understand is that I myself know that life must have been hell on earth for anybody who was kept in a concentration camp, even those who escaped the worst horrors. So compensation has been paid to those to whom we could, without doing damage to the rules, keep inside them.
Cases of Nazi persecution outside concentration camps were also provided for. The Notes for Guidance which the then Foreign Secretary, Lord Butler, approved in 1964—after, as I understand it, discussing them with the hon. Member for Abingdon and others —provided that anybody who had been in an institution where the conditions


were comparable with those of a concentration camp would be eligible. Claimants from such institutions had to justify their claims by detailing the actual conditions in their place of detention. Claimants who were held in a concentration camp did not have to do this.
This requirement was made not from any wish to discriminate against one category of applicant as opposed to another, but I understand, rather to cast the net as widely and as fairly as possible, and I would like to emphasise, in view of some of the things written in the newspapers, that officials in the Foreign Office went right out of their way to help applicants. They helped them to make the best of their case. They helped them to get information which they did not themselves have, which also enabled them to make the best case they could.
Having filled in that background, I come to the Parliamentary Commissioner's Report. I would like first to deal with the allegation that there were defects in the procedure by which the Foreign Office reached its decisions on these claims. I have examined this with all the thoroughness at my command and I say quite frankly that I do not believe that I was misled by officials. I regard it as a Minister's job to see that he has all the necessary information. If he does not have it, that is a very severe mark against him. If, having got it, he does not take it aboard, that is an even severer mark against him, and I reject completely the Parliamentary Commissioner's allegation that officials did not submit the evidence that Ministers right up to and including me should have had.
I want to say something else, and I think that the House had better accept this. [Interruption.] I said I think the House should accept this. Of course, it may accept what it likes but I am entitled to say what I think. Hon. Members are entitled to disagree with me, but I must say what I think. I think that the House had better accept this, and before it disagrees with me it had better think seriously about it. It is that we will breach a very serious constitutional position if we start holding officials responsible for things that are done wrong.
In this country, Ministers are Members of Parliament. That is not true of many

countries. I think that we have the best Parliamentary democratic system in the world and one of the reasons for this is that our Ministers are responsible to Parliament. If things are wrongly done by Ministers and I think that it is tremendously important to hold to that principle.
If things have gone wrong, then Ministers have gone wrong and I accept my full share of the responsibility in this case. It happens that I am the last of a series of Ministers who have looked at this matter and I am the one who got caught with the ball when the lights went up. But I accept, I repeat, my share of the responsibility. I could not possibly do other. I read every page of all the information. It is Ministers who must be attacked, not officials.
The Office of Parliamentary Commissioner was intended to strengthen our form of democratic Government, but let me say that if that Office were to lead to changing this constitutional position so that officials got attacked and Ministers escaped, then I think that the whole practice of Ministers being accountable to Parliament would be undermined. I think that the morale of the Civil and Diplomatic Services would be undermined and I am sure that many experienced right hon. and hon. Members want to think twice about that situation.

Mr. Douglas Houghton: How does my right hon. Friend relate this doctrine to the existence and practice of the Comptroller and Auditor-General and the Public Accounts Committee?

Mr. Brown: I think that I can quite easily relate it to them. What I am trying to say is that we should not extrude, as it were, that we should not carry, the doctrine of these Committees any further. I think that they are already open to objection, as a matter of fact, but I certainly believe that we in this House should not take them any further and we should stay with Ministers and should deal with Ministers where we think that things have gone wrong. Ministers must, in my view, remain responsible to Parliament, and I am willing to do so. Officials must remain responsible to their Ministers.

Mr. Grant-Ferris: Can the right hon. Gentleman tell us where in


the Report the Parliamentary Commissioner attacks the doctrine of Ministerial responsibility?

Mr. Brown: No. What he does—because he had to, otherwise he could not have made a report—is to obtain this on the doctrine of maladministration.

Mr. Grant-Ferris: That was the Minister.

Mr. Brown: I am sorry. The hon. Gentleman must read the Report. This is one thing I am trying to get at, and one of the things I want the House to consider is that the Parliamentary Commissioner was set up as the Parliamentary Commissioner for Administration. He cannot, therefore, deal with Ministers; he can deal only with officials. I think that this is bad. [HON. MEMBERS: "Why establish the office?"] I am not scoring any party points; I am talking to the House as the House of Commons, and I think that the House ought to think about this in that light. Personally —and I am now speaking personally and not for the Cabinet—I happen to feel that if this Report is to be the forerunner of a new doctrine, both sides of the House will regret it very much. I was trying to draw attention to some of the things which the House should consider.
Ministers are responsible to the House, and must be; officials in Departments are responsible to their Ministers, and must be. I assure the House that in so far as there are lessons to be learned from this case, I have ensured that the Foreign Office has learned them. I have issued to the Department the instructions which seemed to me to follow. They will be carried out. It is for the House to hold me responsible for that and not try to hold responsible any officials for whom I speak in the House.
I come now to whether, having considered the Parliamentary Commissioner's Report, as I have, very seriously and very carefully, compensation should be paid. I say straight away that the ill-treatment of these gallant men has never been at issue. One of them, a very gallant man, purported on television to remember something which he said he thought that I had said. His recollection and mine are at odds, but I must say that the record of that meeting does

not bear out what he said. Leaving that on one side, everybody who has been in any of these discussions knows that I have made it absolutely plain that the gallantry of these men has never been at issue.
What the Parliamentary Commissioner has not found is that the conditions of these men, bad as they were, were as bad as those suffered by many other gallant men in many other German camps. The Parliamentary Commissioner concentrated exclusively on Sachsenhausen—[HON.MEMBERS: "Those were his terms of reference."] Those were the terms of reference, but because he concentrated on that, he, unlike me and unlike my predecessors, did not have also to take into account the thousands of other cases of other people who suffered even more than these gallant men suffered. He concentrated his report on the narrow issue, the very much narrower issue, and that I was not allowed to do. 1 had to take into account the wider issue.
He concentrated his attention on the very much narrower issue of whether the special camp, the Sonderlager, or the Zellenbau, the cell block, formed part of the concentration camp. I had that in my mind when I came into this office and no doubt my predecessors had it in theirs, but we also had to take into account the wider issue. Whether the Sonderlager or the Zellenbau were inside the perimeter of Sachsenhausen was always an arguable issue. All the Ministers—and there are many of us—who have dealt with this case—and I ask the House to understand that it has been dealt with the utmost compassion and the utmost desire to do the right thing and the fair thing—all the Ministers who have dealt with this case on the basis of the "Butler Agreement" have come to one conclusion, which was that technically speaking they were not inside the perimeter.

Mrs. Anne Kerr: I am one of those hon. Members who have been in this wretched place and I have seen where our men were imprisoned. Would not my right hon. Friend now agree that, in fact, what our men were subjected to was at least as bad as what men outside had to submit to? For instance, they had to see men hanged by a hook and die slowly and men dropped done a hole who had to die slowly.

Mr. Brown: We have taken all that into account. What I am trying to say is not that they were not ill-treated, but that I believe and that all my predecessors believed that there are many others who were much more ill-treated, and we found it very had to find in favour of these men.

Mrs. Renée Short: Irrelevant.

Mr. Brown: It is no good saying that it is irrelevant. May I tell my hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton, South-West—

Mrs. Short: North-East.

Mr. Brown: The wind blows colder up there. There will be many people—and I shall be surprised if there are not some living in Wolverhampton—who, after we decide what I shall propose tonight, will ask, "Why not me?". The House may well find that some people, who have not had the advantage of the advocates whom these men have had, will now emerge and ask, "Why am I not getting compensation for conditions in which I was treated much worse?".

Mrs. Short: Mrs. Short rose—

Mr. Brown: I think that I ought to get on. I have just said that all the Ministers who have looked at this have all separately on the basis of the "Butler Rules" reached one conclusion. The Parliamentary Commissioner, on the other hand, has come to another conclusion.

Mrs. Short: It is the Foreign Office.

Mr. Brown: It is nothing to do with the Foreign Office; it is a group of Ministers. When the Ombudsman has made enough decisions, perhaps we shall have an Ombudsman to look at the Ombudsman's decisions, and if he gets 100 per cent. right, I shall be surprised.
However, all the Ministers who have looked at this quite separately have come to one conclusion and the Parliamentary Commissioner has come to another. I repeat that no one has ever disputed that this was a borderline case. I am bound to say that I do not see any reason for thinking that the judgment of the Parliamentary Commissioner is necessarily
better than that of all of us. [HON. MEMBERS: "Then why appoint him?"] I must be allowed to make my own case.
However, I have always wanted to be not only fair but generous in the case of these officers. They performed courageous exploits as escapers from prisoners-of-war camps, and their fortitude under duress was famous. Their gallantry, their honour and their integrity have never been in question.
Having established the office of Parliamentary Commissioner, whether I think his judgment is right or wrong, I am certain that it would be wrong to reject his views. I think that public opinion would be outraged if I rejected his views on an issue which affects personally a few very gallant men.
Having quite firmly, and I hope quite honestly, explained my own view, I have nevertheless decided that compensation will be paid on the appropriate basis to all these claimants or, in a case of those who have died, to their dependants. I want the House to understand that in doing so I am probably being unfair to quite a number of gallant men who have suffered very badly, but who are outside the compensation scheme. It is precisely this difficulty which contributed to my original decision. In applauding the decision that I am announcing tonight, the whole House must accept with me any unfairnesses that flow from it.
In a matter of this kind—[InterrputionIt is no good asking "Why?" It is the Butler rules that establish this. In a matter of this kind there can be no absolute certainty as to what is the right answer. Wherever the dividing line is drawn, there are bound to be hard cases on the wrong side of it. For practical purposes tonight, the question must be decided one way or the other, and I have decided to settle it in the way that the Parliamentary Commissioner suggested. All the points at issue between the Parliamentary Commissioner and the Foreign Office, and all the available evidence has since then, been submitted to me.
I have issued the required instructions in the office as to how cases like this should be dealt with in the future. I hope that the House will agree with me that there is no useful purpose to be served by prolonging a controversy which has caused distress and resentment to some very honourable, very gallant and most deserving people. I hope too, that the House will feel that justice has been


done to them by the decision I have made and that I have taken all the care I can to ensure that we do not have another problem like this.
Before I sit down let me say this. Newspapers talk about bungling and blundering. It is imperative for me to say that no one has blundered or bungled. This was an issue of judgment. The Parliamentary Commissioner's view is that our judgment was wrong. I am willing to accept that. I have therefore reviewed and revised my decision, but this remains a matter of judgment and on a matter of judgment on an issue as narrow as this anyone can be wrong. I would have wished, since it has come out this way. that I had taken this decision earlier. I did not, but there it is. I have taken the decision now, and I hope on this basis we can end what for me is a very unhappy story.

7.34 p.m.

Mr. Airey Neave: The House will be glad that two and a half years after this case was first raised the right hon. Gentleman has at last agreed to alter his decision. In his final words he said that he was sorry that he had not taken this step before. If he had listened to hon. and right hon. Gentlemen on both sides of the House who saw him 12 months ago and asked for an impartial inquiry into this matter, we would not be here today and the claimants would not have to suffer from the anxiety and trouble that they have. if he had listened to the points put to him and other Ministers at that time, this would not have happened.
The right hon. Gentleman has proposed some rather unusual constitutional doctrines tonight with regard to the position of the Parliamentary Commissioner. I do not propose to refer to them, but I dare say that other hon. Members will wish to raise them. It is my duty to give a factual account to the House of this case as I saw it.
The right hon. Gentleman has given the impression to the House that this is a borderline case and that there are a lot of other people outside who may be fairly close to it. This was a cast-iron case from the start. This is the whole point, and it is why the right hon. Member for Easington (Mr. Shin well) and many of my hon. and right hon. Friends

took it up. The point was, and I do not think that the right hon. Gentleman understands it, that these men were in the cellblock, in the main compound of the camp, and when we come to that part of the Parliamentary Commissioner's report I should like to refer to it.
This is a very important matter for the House and its power to remedy injustices. The public expect us to see that injustice remedied by searching and full inquiry. It is not for me to say anything about the duties of the Select Committee, to which I do not belong, but it does exist for that purpose. We could not have got the Government to change their mind without the assistance of Sir Edmund Compton, the Parliamentary Commissioner. The Leader of the House is quite right, I could not even with all the assistance that I had from so many hon. and right hon. Members on both sides of the House, have achieved that result of reversing a decision with regard to these claims without Sir Edmund. He made a really thorough and searching report, and the thanks of the whole House are due to him for unearthing what really happened in this case, about which the right hon. Gentleman has not really told us.
I will now give an account, which I think shows what happened, and that very bad blunders indeed were made, not only by Ministers but by officials. I do not want to talk about officials here; there is another place to do so. Maladministration can be both by Ministers and officials, and in this case the Ministers were shown the detailed facts and plans. The right hon. Gentleman has referred to the gallantry of these men, Group Captain Day, Colonel John Churchill and Mr. Sydney Dowse. I have made no personal contact with the others, but it was because these men were of the highest quality and courage, and we owe so much to them, that the attitude described in paragraph 68 of the Report dealing with the Foreign Office was all the more disgraceful.
In a moving passage, the Parliamentary Commissioner refers to their distinguished and gallant war record. He says:
 For these men it is essential as part of a distinguished and gallant war record that they were held in a concentration camp and suffered Nazi persecution there.


Further he says:
 Further, this was exceptional treatment which they incurred because of the exceptional bravery and resource that they had shown in working for their country and damaging the German war effort.
It is all the more reason why it makes this case so unfortunate and so tragic.
Group Captain Day was an Albert medallist. He won the Distinguished Service Order while he was a prisoner of war for his escaping activities. Colonel Churchill was a well known Commando leader and Mr. Dowse was the organiser of the great escapes from Stalag Luft 3, as a result of which two-thirds of the officers who escaped were shot on Hitler's orders. The right hon. Gentleman referred to my experiences. It was as an official of the Nuremberg Tribunal that I learned a great deal about Sachsenhausen and the nature of the operation of the concentration camps.
I have an advantage here. I was convinced from the start that the decision was wholly wrong on the facts. The important point was that from the first time that I took this up with the present Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations, in October 1965, I asked for an independent inquiry. I have been asking for that ever since. That was what the Motion on the Order Paper was about in April last year. I asked for an independent inquiry at a time when the Foreign Office was saying that its system was adequate and that it had reliable evidence about the treatment. It is quite clear from the nature of the Parliamentary Commissioner's Report that it did not have reliable evidence about the treatment that these men had suffered. I am not sure that the right hon. Gentleman is seized of the point that the Foreign Office had got the story wrong and that the men were in the cells in the main compound of the camp.
1 met a blank wall of incomprehension, and so I sought the advice of the right hon. Member for Easington and many other distinguished hon. Member on the point about the-cells and the Sonderlager to which the Foreign Secretary referred. It is clear from the reply that no homework had been done on this point. The Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations, then Minister of State at the

Foreign Office, said to me on 28th February, 1966:
The cells in which the men were held, although adjoining the Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp, were quite separate from it and the conditions and treatment in these cases were not comparable with those within the main camp."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 28th February, 1966; Vol. 725, c. 890.]
Did not the Ministers read any documents at all? They already knew that the men were in the cells as a result of our interrogation reports.
There is one damning thing concerning the Ministers and officials. I sent the Foreign Office an aerial photograph of the camp. If the Select Committee wished to do so, it could see the correspondence. The photograph showed the Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations where these cells were. If hon. Members look at Appendix E of the Commissioner's Report—this is of the greatest importance as a matter of fact—they will see where the cells were marked in black, where the Sonderlager was, where the execution spot was and where the crematorium was. No one in his right mind could have suggested that those enclosures were other than in the concentration camp. One has only to look at the plan.
I supplied not only the aerial photograph but German documents and plans of the camp. The suggestion that in some way this was a borderline case is wholly unfounded. This was an absolutely certain case. It appeared that certain people concerned with it had not looked at the plans and were not aware of the facts. It is clear from the Parliamentary Commissioner's Report that the men were in cells, that people had been taken out from these cells and shot and that commandos from Lieut. Colonel Churchill's own commando were shot while he was in the cells, because the Foreign Office compensated their dependants. We also know that in the main compound there were two other British subjects who were compensated. We know from the investigation by the Parliamentary Commissioner, which was detailed and impartial—Irepeat"impartial"—that the treatment accorded in the main compound of the camp was less severe than that accorded in the
cells. This is the real point. This is


what the right hon. Gentleman has not dealt with in his explanation.
These are the factual matters about which the House wants to know. It knows that this maladministration occurred, but it wants to know why, and why these decisions were made, because Ministers were not personally informed on all the facts. It was not only officials. My right hon. Friend the Member for Kinross and West Perthshire (Sir Alec Douglas-Home) and other of my right hot and hon. Friends had the advantage of seeing the men ourselves. As the right hon. Member for Easington knows, we did our own interrogation of the men. That was not done in the Foreign Office. The Foreign Office never saw these men. It never asked them any question about the detailed position and location of the cells. We as an all-party group asked the men these questions and were satisfied that they were telling the truth.

Mr. George Brown: I am sure that the hon. Gentleman would not want to be unfair. Before I came to my decision, which has been held to have been wrong and which I have reversed, I saw the men.

Mr. Neave: The less I say about our discussions on that, the better, because we did not go into any details about where the men were cited in the camp, as far as I remember. The issue at all times was whether the men in the cells were in a concentration camp within the definition of the agreement. The Parliamentary Commissioner found that they were. It is obvious that they were all along. My case has not differed at all over the last two and a half years. It is exactly the case which I put across the Floor of the House to the Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations in February 1966. The right hon. Gentleman knows that. I have not changed my ground one inch.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Kinross and West Perthshire severely questioned the Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations about the position in the camp. We did not get anywhere as a result of that exchange, and we decided to take the men to see the then Minister of State for Foreign Affairs, now the hon. Lady the Minister of State at the Welsh Office. We were not at all successful. I received a very discour

aging letter before I even got there. I was told by her private secretary:
 A negative decision has been arrived at in this case. There is thus no question of reopening it, but as agreed with you she will willingly assure the gallant gentlemen concerned that no doubt is cast upon their good faith.
Paragraph 64 of the Parliamentary Commissioner's Report suggests that it was. That is a very serious matter which I draw to the attention of the House. I do not say anything more about it, but there is a clear implication in the Report.
A further all-party group worked on this matter for some months. I thank the hon. Members for Penistone (Mr. Mendelson), Ealing, North (Mr. Molloy), Dewsbury (Mr. Ginsburg), the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr. Grimond) and my hon. Friend the Member for Macclesfield (Sir A. V. Harvey) for their great help. This has been a very difficult and long case and without their help I could not have got as far as I did.
We saw the men in November, 1966. As a result, we decided to see the Foreign Secretary. On that occasion, on 20th December, 1966, I had the aerial photograph with me and 1 gave it to him. He remembers that. 1 gave him the plans of the camp. Those plans are identical with the plan in Appendix E. There can be no doubt in anyone's mind, as a result of looking at those plans, that a big mistake had been made at the very beginning of this issue in October. 1965. The evidence is clear. The Parliamentary Commissioner, an impartial judge, has found the Foreign Office guilty of maladministration. The issue was much simpler than the right hon. Gentleman suggests.
The right hon. Gentleman's reply to me of 30th December, 1966, is very significant. He said that he would not be able to ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer for an ex gratia payment, but he said:
 We are agreed that these officers were imprisoned in a special camp and cell block which were within the general administrative perimeter of the Sachsenhausen complex. But I cannot accept, on the basis of the evidence which has been assembled.…, that they suffered treatment in any way comparable to that endured by the inmates of the main camp at Sachsenhausen….
We know that the evidence was there and that it was not properly investigated. We know that the evidence was that the


treatment in the main camp was less severe than the treatment in the cells. There was a failure to make a proper investigatiton.

Mr. George Brown: Mr. George Brown indicated dissent.

Mr. Neave: The right hon. Gentleman says "No", but this is not what the Parliamentary Commissioner found. He took six and a half months to go into this case. One must admit that Ministers have a lot to do and that they have a lot of papers to read, but this servant of the House was engaged entirely on this case for six and a half months.

Mr. Brown: The hon. Gentleman is making very heavy weather of this. [Horn. MEMBERS: "No."] I have already reversed the decision. If the hon. Gentleman is trying to say that what happened to the men in the Sonderlager or Zellenbau even compared with what happened to the major part of the people who were in Sachsenhausen concentration camp proper, he is trying to prove far too much. The Parliamentary Commissioner never got himself into that. I recommend the hon. Gentleman to rest content with his victory and not get too far.

Mr. Neave: I am not prepared to accept that. The House wants to look at this matter factually. I was referring to what the Parliamentary Commissioner said in respect of these men. There may have been worse cases—I do not dispute that—but the failure of the investigation by the Foreign Office was to differentiate one from another and to treat each case on its merits. The Foreign Office never did that. It never got its facts right. It did not do its homework. That has been proved.
Eventually, on 20th February, with the hon. Member for Ealing, North, I took the men to see the right hon. Gentleman. All that he could tell them was that the fund was exhausted. He said that the money had all gone. In case the impression is given that we went there and started our representations too late in the day, it must be remembered that the case was taken up a long time ago before the registration of claims was complete.
Finally, after several meetings with the Under-Secretary of State, before whom all the facts were laid and the arguments

and details were put before him, as a last resort I asked the Prime Minister to receive a deputation consisting of my right hon. Friend the Member for Kinross and West Perthshire, the right hon. Member for Easington, the right hon. Member for Devon, North (Mr. Thorpe) and others. The Prime Minister replied on 6th April. His reply is very revealing in regard to whether people were or were not misled. He replied in this way:
I have examined very carefully the questions raised in your letter of 22nd March about the personnel who were in prison outside the main compound of Sachsenhausen concentration camp.
As late as 6th April last year, therefore, it was being maintained by someone, in face of all the evidence to the contrary, that the men were outside the main compound. The Prime Minister continued:
 I am bound to say, however, that I find myself in complete agreement with the views expressed to you by the Foreign Secretary.
That was what the Prime Minister said.
We not only did our best not to make it a party matter, but we bent over backwards to try to get an independent inquiry. In our letter, which was signed by representatives of all parties, we asked the Prime Minister for a barrister to be appointed from the Department of the Judge Advocate General, with war crime experience, to look into the case. That was refused. That was why we have landed up in this mess and with this serious case of injustices. We then tabled on the Order Paper a Motion for inquiry which attracted the signature of more than 350 hon. Members.
I do not propose to go on any further. The Report showed that the case was very much worse than we thought. In my view, it was a cast-iron case from the first. The facts that the Foreign Office had before it were wrong, because the Department never fully investigated the matter but used evidence in the form of books by other prisoners which were partial and irrelevant. There has been a bad failure of administration.
Nothing that we can do can make up for what happened in Germany 25 years ago, when there were so many cruel deaths and ruined lives, but at least the House should—and I hope will—exercise


its power to do justice to those who survive.

7.53 p.m.

Mr. E. Shinwell: Even my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary will agree that the hon. Member for Abingdon (Mr. Neave) deserves our congratulations for his advocacy and, in particular, his persistency. What appeared to be an act of injustice was brought to his attention. He took appropriate action, which is what Members of Parliament are for. That is our duty. We have a responsibility to those who approach us and allege injustices. That was what the hon. Member for Abingdon did.
I do not propose to follow the hon. Member in the details of this affair. The newspapers were full of it. apparently much to the consternation of my right hon. Friend, and we now have the Report of the Ombudsman. One thing on which I agree with my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary is that whatever inappropriate action is taken by officials in any Government Department, whatever errors of judgment there may be, it is the Minister who is responsible.
This, however, is a rather singular case, because my right hon. Friend was the last of the Mohicans. There had been several predecessors of his who had had the matter brought to their attention and they had come to a judgment not dissimilar from that exercised by my right hon. Friend. But although Ministers are to blame, I have not the least hesitation in saying, because I have been a member of several Governments myself, that I would not be the least surprised if—perhaps it is a surmise but I express it in my own fashion; I want to be generous and fair on this occasion—the officials in the Foreign Office were responsible for an error of judgment. I rate it no higher than that.
When my right hon. Friend postulates that in the modern, new-fangled concept of Parliamentary constitutional procedure a senior official, whether in the Foreign Office or any other Department, should never be subjected to criticism, he is going a bit too far.
I have read the Reports of the Estimates Committee. There have been occasions when I have been in opposition, with no measure of responsibility on

my shoulders, when I have had to interrogate officials, and often I have thought that they had made mistakes. My right hon. Friend will not be surprised at the nature of the debate this evening, because it is quite possible that some of my hon. Friends who have been keenly interested in this matter—indeed, much more so than myself; my contribution was a most modest one and I will explain it presently—may wish to go into further detail.
I rather imagine that this is not the end of the story, much as my right hon. Friend desires it to be, because the Reports of the Ombudsman have, apparently, to be considered by the Select Committee. Back benchers must not be blamed for the creation of Select Committees. Select Committees are created by the Leader of the House. He will not be alarmed, therefore, if the Report of the Ombudsman is referred, as it must be, to the Select Committee, which may concern itself not with detailed investigations, but with asking questions.
This is what I am concerned about, and I will explain why I played a very modest part. What happened was that the hon. Member for Abingdon approached me. I was sceptical about it, and I shall tell hon. Members why. Almost every hon. Member from time to time is the recipient of communications from men who fought in the First World War and who claim that they were unjustly treated, either because they did not receive the appropriate pension or for some other reason. I know from experience at the War Office back in 1929, when I was Financial Secretary in that Department and had to deal with cases, and again as Secretary of State for War, that a whole host of cases is revived. There is a sort of resurrection of cases every time a new Government is elected. That is what happens, and we are bound to deal with them'.
So I was sceptical. I thought, "This is one of the cases where people come along and say they have suffered, and they submit documents in order to substantiate their claims." But after I examined the evidence—and my hon. Friends behind me who also have examined the evidence will concur with this view—I had not the least doubt that there was the utmost validity in the claim which these men were making; there was every


justification for it. I was confirmed in my view when we met the men and interrogated them. I am not without some—I will not say ability—capacity to put questions. My right hon. Friend knows that. I can be very persistent. and I indulged in some interrogation. I wanted to know, and I was completely satisfied, at the end of the interrogation and our meeting with the men, that they had a case. That is why I ventured to assist my hon. Friends and hon. Members on the other side of the House. too. Now my right hon. Friend has come along and said that after all this palaver, all this controversy, all the arguments, he is prepared to provide a solatium in the form of £25,000.
He made a kind of debating point—I thought he made a bit too much of it—when he said in effect that as he gives way on this there will be a lot of others coming along with many other demands.

Mr. Ben Whitaker: On this point of establishing a precedent, which has obviously worried the Foreign Office all along, may I say that I personally think it not only just but also necessary that any other cases are treated with equal generosity? I feel sure that a lot of other people who like myself were too young to be called upon to make such a sacrifice in the last war. would be prepared to forego something in their standard of living in order to see these men recompensed generously.

Mr. Shinwell: My hon. Friend goes a bit further than I was about to go. I am not prepared to go to that length. What I do say is this. I want to put it in a logical and rational fashion. If a number of others come along and submit similar claims, what is to he done about them? I understand that the function of the Ombudsman will continue. Is it really suggested he shall he dismissed because he has submitted a report which my right hon. Friend did not care very much about? The Ombudsman is going to remain where he is and I see no reason why he should not. If somebody comes along with a claim similar to this one which is now recognised by my right hon. Friend and the claim goes to the Ombudsman, can anybody really object? After all, if somebody comes along to a Member of this House and asks that his claim should he considered and it is

referred to the Ombudsman, we go through the whole process again. We shall just have to put up with it. What else can we do? Otherwise we shall be accused of rendering aid to only a number of men now being treated more or less fairly after a long period of time because of the persistent advocacy of the hon. Member for Abingdon.
Suppose that the hon. Member to whom the case is brought is not so persistent as the hon. Member opposite. Then there will be injustice and no relief. If the hon. Member is persistent it will go to the Ombudsman. So I am afraid my right hon. Friend will have to put up with it, so long as he is Foreign Secretary. How long he will be Foreign Secretary is in the lap of the gods. I do not know. Perhaps he will not be long enough for another case to be brought to him, and somebody else will be there instead and will refer to what his predecessor—my right hon. Friend—did.
I am satisfied that these men are to get some relief. After all, what is our objective? After a long argument and quarrel and controversy at the end of the day we have met with success—a remarkable success, if I may say so, for which the hon. Member opposite is very largely responsible. So I think we might leave it where it is.
My right hon. Friend, naturally, is a bit incensed about it. I can understand what his position was. Let us imagine the position of a Minister. A submission is made to him. He refers it to his officials. That is what I used to do. I did not come to a decision at once. I referred the case to the Permanent Under-Secretary. He referred it to the Deputy Under-Secretary. He referred it to some Principal. It goes down the line. It comes up again—back to the Minister. The Minister is told, "There is no case". That is precisely what happened to my right hon. Friend. I am certain that when the submission was first made to my right hon. Friend he did not go into all the detail at once; he would not have had the time he referred it to his officials.

Mr. George Brown: I do not want there to be any misunderstanding. I accept total responsibility for this. I accept responsibility for this office from the time I went to this office. When this case first came to me I minuted it. When


the Parliamentary Commissioner had seen it I minuted saying that I did not like the previous stance of the Department, and I asked that it might be resubmitted, and would they please resubmit it with all the papers. I then read every single paper on the file. If thereafter there was a mistake, it is mine.

Mr. Shinwell: Of course, I accept what my right hon. Friend says. It is not unlike the impression I was trying to create. It was that when the first submission was made to him he did not examine all the details but just read the document and then asked for a further opinion, and it was on the basis of that opinion that his original view was confirmed. He did no: indulge in a minute examination at the beginning.
Now, we find that these men are to get this measure of relief. I am very glad. I have not the least doubt or question about my right hon. Friend's integrity, but sometimes there are errors of judgment—and that goes all along the Treasury Bench and my right hon. Friend is not singular in that respect. I do not worry about that. I hope the Leader of the House is not disturbed because I have said that. Of course, I could disturb him if it were necessary.
So there it is. I think the House is to be congratulated, along with the hon. Member for Abingdon, because we have remedied what appeared to be an act of injustice. Having done that, we can congratulate ourselves.

8.8 p.m.

Sir Arthur Vere Harvey: The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Easington (Mr. Shinwell) has, as usual, made an effective speech, but I rather detected in it an attempt to bring the temperature down a bit. Without wishing to bring in party politics, I think that if this party had been in the Government and a Member on this side had been the Minister in this case and had spoken for 25 minutes, and then in the last few minutes admitted that there had been a mistake, the right hon. Member for Easington would have had a good deal more to say than he has. But I agree in the main with what he has said.
I hope the Foreign Secretary is coming back, because I have several point I wish to address to him. But first of all, I am very glad that the Leader of the House has kept his pledge of last autumn

when he promised that there would be a debate about this matter. Now we are having the debate and I am indebted to him.
We are all indebted to my hon. Friend the Member for Abingdon (Mr. Neave) for his persistence, because, as has been said, it is as a result of it that these men are now to get some money; and, as a result, their honour, which has been in question for some time, is saved. We are indebted to him enormously.
As for the Parliamentary Commissioner, I had my doubts when the Government introduced the Bill to establish the Parliamentary Commissioner. I confess I had my doubts, but now, if he has done one thing which justifies his existence, it is this. He has gone into this matter and produced this Report. He has done it very thoroughly, and it took his six and a half months to go into this matter. He was able to do it, unlike a Minister, without distractions, without trips abroad on Government business, without having to make speeches in this House. He has gone into the matter wholeheartedly and thoroughly, and personally accept his Report wholeheartedly—every word he has said in it.
What does the Foreign Secretary mean by saying that thousands suffered more than these gallant men? Of course, one can pick out some who suffered more than they did, but these men were in a concentration camp, and they suffered, as I shall try to show in the course of my speech.
The right hon. Gentleman then said that the Parliamentary Commissioner's judgment is no better than ours, but who is the Foreign Secretary to question the Parliamentary Commissioner's judgment? We have his Report before us.
Reluctantly, the Foreign Secretary agrees that the Government should pay up £25,000 and says, "Now let us all be friends and forget it." However, Parliament does not look at these matters like that.

Mr. Houghton: The Parliamentary Commissioner is not allowed to substitute his judgment for that of a Minister. The Parliamentary Commissioner is asked to report on matters involving alleged maladministration. Those are the conditions leading to the Minister's judgment. That is an important distinction which we have to keep in mind.

Sir A. V. Harvey: I take that point, but, with my hon. Friend and others of my hon. Friends, I had the privilege of seeing the Foreign Secretary, and we know exactly how this worked over 18 months. I am satisfied that there was maladministration by the Foreign Office, The right hon. Gentleman said that the controversy should not be prolonged. Having been in this House for 23 years, he must know that Select Committees are set up to go into these matters. They can summon anyone to give evidence before them. I have no doubt that this matter will be gone into further.
The House of Commons is a generous and very forgiving institution. If someone realises that a mistake has been made and has the courage to come and say so, the House will forgive him. Instead, the Foreign Secretary chose to prevaricate for 25 minutes in defence of his officials. while agreeing that this was wrong and that was wrong. If he had spoken for 10 minutes and said, "I am sorry. The decision was wrong, but I accept full responsibility", that would have been the end of it. He has brought this trouble on himself.
Of course, in the first place, I blame the Conservative Government for getting only £1 million out of the German Government. It is true that it was an exgratia payment, but it was not enough to make up for the suffering of these people, and they are concerned about their honour and integrity, which have been in question for a very long time. This is a clear case of maladministration on the part of the Foreign Office, although I do not propose to mention the names of any officials. The Select Committee can make further inquiries at a later date, if it so chooses.
When we saw the Foreign Secretary a year ago last December, he had been in his post for a matter of weeks. It may be that the Christmas spirit was in the air, but that did not stop us from going into the matter in detail. We showed him an aerial photograph, and the plan of the camp which was appended to the Parliamentary Commissioner's Report. At the end of our interview, he said, "I am very sorry. All the money has been spent, and there is no more left. It is bad luck ".
However, I want to be fair, 1 hesitate to repeat a private conversation, but I

saw him afterwards and, in the course of a conversation, 1 said, "I do not think that you have heard the end of this, George. There will be more. "He replied," We shall see. There is no more money". I had the impression that he was acting on the brief of his advisers. Somehow, one can always tell when a Minister is acting on a brief and when he is using his own judgment. The right hon. Member for Easington said that when he was Minister of Defence, he used to take advice but frequently ignored it. I can remember many occasions when he did not act on the advice that he was given in his Department, and I gave him full marks for it.
Much has been said tonight about the suffering of these very gallant officers, and I want to give the House one or two examples of what happened. Group Captain Day was one of the bravest R.A.F. officers ever to serve. He was flying on operations at the beginning of the war when he was a good deal older than the average officer in charge of an aircraft. Today, he is a comparatively old man in very poor health, and this matter has caused him tremendous distress. He was a persistent escaper. There must have been hundreds of Germans searching for him all over Germany at one time or another when they should have been pursuing the war against the Allies. After recapture, he was returned handcuffed to Sachsenhausen. He was put in a condemned cell, handcuffed and chained to the floor. He was in solitary confinement with the lights on day and night for weeks on end. Next door to him, people had committed suicide, and there was blood still on the floor when others were put in the cell. The Foreign Office says that these men did not suffer as much as many others did. I do not know how much suffering a man has to endure to satisfy the Foreign Office.
Eight other prisoners, some of whom had been in the Zellenbau for two or three years, were suddenly executed. One can sec from the appendix that the cells were next door to the punishment blocks. The Foreign Office argues that they were outside the camp compound, but it is clear that they were close to the punishment blocks.
Particularly bad treatment was meted out to Colonel Churchill. Because of his


name, the Germans thought that he was related to Sir Winston Churchill, and he was held as a hostage and treated very badly.
There was Mr. Dowse, another R.A.F. officer. He was given solitary confinement on recapture, had a ball and chain placed round his ankle and his hands handcuffed behind his back. There was Mr. James; also Colonel Stevens, who was handcuffed day and night for six months and chained to the wall of his cell at night. There was Captain Payne Best, whose weight dropped from 12 stone to eight stone. There was Mr. Falconer whose weight dropped from 11½ stone to six stone.
When these men were released at the end of the war, they were asked by various Intelligence officers to write reports on their captivity. However, they were in no fit state of health to write about what had gone on. They ought to have gone on six months' convalescence before being asked to write their reports. However, frequently the Foreign Office has quoted from the reports which they produced the day after they came out of the camp.

Mr. William Molloy: We are examining a cruel and heartrending case. The way in which these officers were almost pounced on by people with pens in their hands asking them to tell them what had happened is a matte:- of which note should be taken when one considers the condition that they must have been in.

Sir A. V. Harvey: I agree entirely. Let us hope that the occasion will not arise again. Unfortunately, the world is not at peace.
Later, the Foreign Office was inconsistent in accepting the statements of some claimants as wholly reliable while rejecting others as untrustworthy and exaggerated. Naturally enough, Mr. Dowse and others were incensed at the slur cast on their honour and integrity. Their friends knew about the treatment that they had received, and the attitude of the Foreign Office was quite wrong.
According to paragraph 40 of the Report, the Foreign Office accepted evidence without corroborating it. Why did officials of the Department not see the officers? They were never interviewed.
It is true that the Foreign Secretary saw them at a later date in company with my hon. Friend, but that was merely to say, "We are very sorry, but there is nothing for you. The money has been spent. Good luck, and goodbye." I am sure that he did it very well, but that was not a very satisfactory way of handling the case. It is unbelievable that the Foreign Office officials looking into this affair maintained that these men were not in a concentration camp. If they were not, where were they? They were never interviewed.
Last year, 350 hon. Members on both sides of the House put down a Motion. It was probably the strongest Motion to appear before the House for several years. The right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the House was one of the few to take note of it. No doubt, he was anxious to clear up the matter, and I can understand that because he is a good Parliamentarian in these respects. But it was surprising that no other Minister took note of it and did anything about it.
My hon. Friend referred to the letter from the Prime Minister, who is so active in all these matters. In the course of it, the right hon. Gentleman said:
 As I am sure you know, Mr. Brown has gone into this matter personally and in very great detail on three separate occasions, and it has also been studied independently on other occasions by no less than three Ministers. In the circumstances, I am afraid that I do not think there would be any advantage in our meeting to discuss this further.
In the face of a Motion signed by 350 hon. Members, the Prime Minister should have received a delegation, because he might have been able to clear up the matter in the course of discussions. He chose not to do so.
My hon. Friend the Member for Abingdon saw Ministers on eight different occasions. He certainly showed extreme patience in dealing with the whole affair. The Foreign Secretary can say what he likes, but he must bear the responsibility. I do not want to blow this up into a great issue, but other Ministers in the past—in the case of Crichel Down and so on—have had to accept full responsibility. If the Foreign Secretary wants to excuse officials in the Foreign Office, then, he, and he alone, is to blame. The Foreign Secretary knows that he could have judged this matter 18 months ago.

The Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons (Mr. Richard Crossman): Of all the things of which one can accuse the Foreign Secretary, surely not taking the blame is not one. Did he not make it quite clear that he totally and absolutely assumed personal responsibility?

Sir A. V. Harvey: I do not think that he did. He spent 25 minutes querying and questioning the Parliamentary Commissioner's Report, and at the end of his speech rather reluctantly said, "I accept the blame."

Mr. R. W. Brown: Nonsense.

Sir A. V. Harvey: If hon. Members are in doubt, perhaps they will read HANSARD tomorrow and see for themselves.

Dr. M. P. Winstanley: Would the hon. Gentleman accept that what the Foreign Secretary said was that if there was any blame he accepted it?

Sir A. V. Harvey: There is a great deal of blame, but that will be gone into at a later date.

Mr. Charles Pannell: Mr. Charles Pannell (Leeds, West)rose—

Sir A. V. Harvey: I will not give way. i have nearly finished.
The right hon. Member for Easington talked about other possible claimants. I hope that if another 12 come along the Government will deal with them equally generously. The sum involved is £25,000. We hand out over £200 million a year in aid, with which agree in many respects, but why are we so niggardly over £25,000 when it comes to dealing with our own people who have served and fought for this country? It is a nonsense. I hope we shall deal with the men fairly and that they will get their money quickly. I hope that when the Select Committee gets to work it will look into the matter in more detail than we have done tonight.

8.22 p.m.

Mr. Douglas Houghton: In one respect, the statement of the Foreign Secretary will give complete satisfaction to the House. He has decided to put this matter right, and we applaud his

candour and his courage in doing so. What dismayed me about my right hon. Friend's speech was his animadversions on the office of the Parliamentary Commissioner and his relationship to Ministerial responsibility and the relationship between Ministers and the House. It seems to me that we shall have to be clear where the Parliamentary Commissioner stands, what are the duties and responsibilities of the Select Committee, and how we are to order our affairs.
My right hon. Friend claimed to have some share in setting up the Parliamentary Commissioner. So do I. I was Chairman of the Cabinet Committee on the Parliamentary Commissioner, and I drafted the White Paper. It was made clear throughout our deliberations on the institution of the Parliamentary Commission that we would put him in a position comparable with that of the Comptroller and Auditor General and we would create a Select Committee to which his reports should go.
There is one dissimilarity, one must admit, between reports of the Comptroller and Auditor General to the House and reports of Parliamentary Commissioner, namely, that the Parliamentary Commissioner is dealing with a matter referred to him by an hon. Member of this House to whom he is under a duty to report his findings. But in this case the Parliamentary Commissioner decided that, in view of the public interest in the matter, he should make a special report to the House. That is why we are discussing the Third Report of the Parliamentary Commissioner. However, I am sure it is a mistake for a debate to take place on the Floor of the House before the Select Committee has examined the report of the Parliamentary Commissioner. We are prejudging the issue, but I sincerely hope that the Select Committee—I see the chairman in his place on the benches opposite—will not regard this debate as in any way prejudicing its right to pursue its investigations into this matter to its own satisfaction and to report back to the House. That is the proper procedure and I hope that it will be followed.
I recall a report made to the House by the Comptroller and Auditor General on what was known as the Ferranti affair. Immediately it came to the notice of the Government the then Chancellor of the Exchequer decided to appoint a committee


of his own to look into certain disturbing aspects of that report, but the Public Accounts Committee was not diverted from its duty by that action in pursuing its own inquiries and making a special report to the House.
We have to get very clear in our minds the rights and duties of the Select Committee that has been appointed not by the Leader of the House, but by the House. Although it is appropriate in such circumstances as these for a Minister who is ready to make redress for maladministration to announce it to the House without delay so there need be no uncertainty, it. is enough, with respect, that such an announcement be made and the rest of the matter left to the Select Committee to make its report upon to the House in due season.
My right hon. Friend in his, I think, ill-judged remarks about the Parliamentary Commissioner seemed to have mistaken the function of the Parliamentary Commissioner. That is why I intervened a short time ago in the speech of the hon. Member for Macclesfield (Sir A. V. Harvey). When the Foreign Secretary says that he thinks that his judgment is as good as that of the Parliamentary Commissioner, he is mistaking the function of the Parliamentary Commissioner. It is expressly clear that the Parliamentary Commissioner may not substitute his discretion for that resting with a Minister and he may not substitute his judgment for that properly exercisable by a Minister, unless in either case the discretion or the judgment rested upon an element of maladministration.
The point is that in Paragraph 53 of the Report, the Parliamentary Commissioner says:
I am obliged to report that there have been defects in the administrative procedure by which the decisions on these claims were reached in the first place, and defended when subsequently challenged.
That is the genesis of the criticism of the Parliamentary Commissioner. The House and the Select Committee should know how these defects in administrative procedure arose, how they came to be tolerated for so long, and how they appeared to sustain Ministerial judgments right up to the Minister himself. I submit that that is the job of the Select Committee.
I hope that my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House will consider what has been said about the position of the Parliamentary Commissioner, because it will be very disturbing if, on future occasions of this kind, we are plunged into a debate in this House, the Minister comes down and says that he is going to remedy the grievance, at the same time asks the House to call it a day, and makes some comments about the relative merits of his own judgment and that of the Parliamentary Commissioner. We must sustain the Parliamentary Commissioner, and we must sustain the Select Committee which we have appointed. I think that this is the right procedure.
Before the debate began 1 thought that we might be making a mistake. Now, 1 am sure that we are, and I think that it will disturb those of my hon. Friends and hon. Gentlemen opposite who have a duty as members of the Select Committee. I hope that nothing has been said in the debate so far, or will be said later. which will deflect them from that duty.

8.30 p.m.

Mr. Richard Wood: I hope that 1 may be forgiven if I make an intervention, which I assure the House will be brief, but I feel that in a matter of this great importance something should be said on behalf of the Opposition, although I assure all hon. Members that nothing is further from my thoughts than to reduce in any way the serious and impartial consideration which the House has been giving to the claims of a number of very brave men.
As has been pointed out by my hon. Friend the Member for Abingdon (Mr. Neave), the anxiety which has been felt on this matter has been felt by Members of all parties, and anxiety about certain aspects of it continues to be felt by Members of all parties. In no sense does this seem to me to be a party matter. The concern of Parliament, as it was the concern of the Parliamentary Commissioner, is primarily to see that justice is done. and it is clear, from what I have heard in this debate, that in the light of the Report the House of Commons and the country will be satisfied only if the claims which were formerly rejected are now, as they have been, accepted and discharged in full.
The right hon. Gentleman the Foreign Secretary took a long time, as it seemed


to some of my hon. Friends and to some hon. Gentlemen opposite, to say the one thing that we wanted to hear. I do not intend, if he will forgive me, to follow the right hon. Member for Sowerby (Mr. Houghton) in his important comments on the whole theme and duty of the Parliamentary Commissioner and the Select Committee. I would like to concern myself with the sentences which seemed to matter most in the Foreign Secretary's speech, and they were the concluding ones.
Most of us, I suppose, find daunting the problems which were implicit in the definition of Nazi persecution, contained in paragraph 9 of Rule I of the Anglo-German Agreement. The subsequent attempt to differentiate between the purpose and the quality of the ill-treatment meted out in the main compound of Sachsenhausen, on the one hand, and in the Sonderlager and the cell block on the other, seems to me almost beyond the range of human wisdom, and I do not find it the least surprising that this attempt to differentiate completely failed.
Had it been clearly recognised that the Sonderlager and the cell block, although separated from the main compound, were integral parts of the camp, within its main perimeter, and under the same S.S. management, perhaps the differentiation would never have been attempted and the case would have been immediately admitted. But the attempt to differentiate was made, and a judgment was reached which included Sergeant Kemp and Captain Starr, imprisoned in the main compound, but excluded those in the Sonderlager and the cell block, notwithstanding that they were under constant threats of execution and continued uncertainty of their fate, and notwithstanding the branding of Group Captain Day as
 an enemy of the Reich and a criminal.
Having listened to the debate, and having thought about the Report, I do not think that it is the basis of this judgment which causes us the greatest disquiet, because the judgment was based, originally, on a set of criteria sincerely designed to implement the intentions of the 1964 Agreement, even though those criteria inevitably involved harsher tests of past

suffering for those who were not in a recognised concentration camp than for those who were, and even though that basis of judgment led, in the words of paragraph 61, to the
actual case of the main compound claimant awarded compensation who was more leniently treated than Zellenbau claimants refused compensation.
I believe that the disquiet which we feel flows from the defence of this judgment, once it was made, when it was questioned, by reliance on evidence which was favourable to it, and disregard of evidence less favourable. For example, Captain Churchill's acceptance of the Foreign Office's decision was urged in defence of this judgment even though he had had no experience whatsoever of the cell block, and Sergeant Kemp's vivid account of his seven months in the main compound was widely accepted as evidence of the cruelty there, but it was wrongly taken to refute other accounts of events in Sachsenhausen which was described as "fantastic".
In this grim and unhappy consequence of the Nazi inhumanities of two decades ago, I find it hard to think that anything can be gained now by attempts to apportion blame, either in the near-impossible tasks of judgment which were posed by the 1964 agreement itself or in the misjudgments which have since been made and the attempts to defend those wrong judgments on incomplete evidence. We must all owe a great debt of graitude to the Parliamentary Commissioner for his careful evaluation and admirably lucid Report. Above all, we owe a debt to my hon. Friend the Member for Abingdon (Mr. Neave) and a great many other hon. Gentlemen for the persistence of their advocacy of these claims.
Most important of all, as the Foreign Secretary recognised in his speech, is the need to discharge the debt, as far as it can be discharged, to a few very brave men, both in financial terms and in terms of any damage to their integrity and reputation which they have suffered. I hope that, in the light of the right hon. Gentleman's announcement tonight, that debt will be discharged fully and generously without delay.

8.36 p.m.

Mr. David Ginsburg: This is a short but very important debate on an issue which has moved me personally


as much as any since I have been a Member of the House, and it is, for many reasons, a significant Parliamentary occasion. Most important of all, restitution has been made. The Foreign Secretary has announced that the detainees are to be compensated and the House has shown that, even when mighty Ministers like the Foreign Secretary and the Prime Minister have behaved unreasonably in a case affecting ordinary citizens, the citizens, through the exertions of hon. Members, can have their grievances redressed. I think that, on further reflection, both my right hon. Friends would admit that this is no bad thing, that it has done good for Parliament and for democracy.
The second reason why this is an important occasion, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Sowerby (Mr. Houghton) and the right hon. Member for Bridlington (Mr. Wood) both said, is that the matter which we are resolving has been a major achievement and vindication of the Parliamentary Commissioner. Although we have amongst us here a very determined group of campaigners, my colleagues and I would all admit that, without the Parliamentary Commissioner and his very special powers, but also without his great personal skill on this occasion, we might never have broken through.
Perhaps, if it is not too embarrassing to him, I might add a word of praise to the Leader of the House. He is the guardian of hon. Members' rights as well as the manager of Government business, and I think that he appreciated far earlier than most Members of the Government the political significance of this case and the part which the Parliamentary Commissioner could play in resolving our dilemma.
Lastly, the occasion is important because it involves the wider issue of public administration as such. I speak as one who has been a civil servant, and even, for a short period, adviser to a political party, and now is a Member of Parliament. It is important that we should have a just and efficient public administration. Properly handled, our Civil Service can emerge stronger from this case and not weaker, as some Ministers fear.
I. urge those colleagues who have not done so to read or re-read the Parliamentary Commissioner's Report, because

it is a classic of narrative and detection. In particular I would urge them to read paragraphs 64, 65 and 66. This brings me to the point of my right hon. Friend the Member for Sowerby. One can see here the shrewd way in which the Commissioner drew a line between administration and politics—

Mr. Crossman: Policy.

Mr. Ginsburg: Policy and politics. He has been concerned to examine the administrative processes whereby Ministers, and, in the circumstances of this case, particularly the Foreign Secretary, reach their decisions. Quite rightly, the Commissioner does not—this is important—pass judgment on Ministers. One ought to have in mind the precedent of Lord Denning and the Report of the Profumo affair in saying that that is surely for us in this House. But, having said that, we as Members of Parliament have a duty to say things about Ministers, and to say them frankly but, I hope, without any vindictiveness.
I am sorry that the Foreign Secretary is not in his place at the moment, because there are some things which I want to say about him and his colleagues. Despite the question of maladministration which the Parliamentary Commissioner rightly brings out, he was not set up to question the judgment of Ministers, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Sowerby said. I was amazed at Ministers' judgments in this case. As the hon. Member for Abingdon indicated, none of us was making party points. None of us was seeking a Ministerial scalp. All that hon. Members were saying, for months and indeed for years, was that we believed that a mistake had been made. We simply asked for an inquiry, and we asked for it time and time again.
I have here letters from the Secretary of State, as well as letters from the Under-Secretary of State, who is in his place. The Under-Secretary of State will remember that on 6th March, at the Foreign Office, with the hon. Members for Abingdon (Mr. Neave) and Ealing, North (Mr. Molloy), I specifically put to him a suggestion that even at that very late hour someone from the Judge Advocate-General's Department, within the Government machinery, responsible to the Lord Chancellor, could examine this


case. He will recollect that suggestion, and he knows that, subsequently, the answer was, "No". The point came up again in the letter from the hon. Member for Abingdon to the Prime Minister, and once again the answer was "No".
Ministers were warned in letters and orally, time and time again, by many hon. Members—and the Under-Secretary of State will remember the time that the hon. Member for Abingdon and I spent with him—that on the facts, their advisers were wrong. I should like to read to the House a personal letter which I wrote to the Foreign Secretary. I also submitted it to the Parliamentary Commissioner. Although it was written in almost indecipherable handwriting, I wrote to him because I wanted him to read it instead of it going through his official machinery. I wrote:
 I am indeed grieved that we seem to be on a collision course over the Sachsenhausen affair. May I earnestly put the following item to you. Squadron Leader Dowse has stated that he was in the Cell Block ' for some time —the neighbouring cells were occupied by Thällman (leader of the German Communist Party, allegedly killed in an air raid but presumably murdered by the Nazis) and the Bishop of Munster, arrested by the Gestapo for his anti-Nazi sermons and made a cardinal before his death, in recognition of his suffering and courage. Surely incarceration with such people must constitute Nazi persecution as defined in the Notes for Guidance.
These are the crucial words:
I do not know whether you were aware of this fact but would be glad if you would give it full weight. I still hope you will see your way to appointing someone to conduct an independent inquiry as to the facts in these cases which are in dispute.
I received no personal reply from the Foreign Secretary but I received a reply from the Under-Secretary of State in which the point was totally ignored. In his reply, the Under-Secretary of State made one extraordinary statement to which I must draw the attention of the House. On the subject of the Notes for Guidance he said:
 Our legal advice is that the Notes for Guidance upon which the distribution of compensation was based were administrative instructions authorised by the Foreign Secretary at the time. As such they were not creative of rights and only the authority issuing them is competent to say what they mean.
I am frankly staggered that the Minister could sign a statement of that kind, at least without satisfying himself that no

mistakes were made. I have today been re-reading the regulations and notes for guidance. They are so complicated that it must have entered Ministers' heads that it might be possible for errors in the rules to have arisen. Why did not the Minister, even at this very late stage, insist that the officers be interviewed?
The hon. Member for Abingdon, my hon. Friend the Member for Ealing, North and I were so staggered at the obduracy of Ministers—at their conviction that they were right—that, in the end, we began to think that perhaps the Government had some hard facts and information which we did not have and that perhaps we had weighed the whole thing up in the wrong way. At one interview, in the interview rooms downstairs, we spoke to three of these gallant officers. It could not have been pleasant for them because we went over their statements as if we disbelieved them. However, at the end of the interview, we had no reason to doubt their words. When we saw the interrogation reports at the Foreign Office—on which that Department was resisting the claims—we saw very little by way of inconsistency but very much to confirm what these gallant men had told us and were telling us.
Many interrogation reports were compiled after the war. They were essentially intelligence documents and were never used in evidence in war crime trials or at courts-martial. They were, so to speak, pointers or clues to be followed up; and that follow-up work had to be done by the appropriate judicial processes and interviewing. We still do not know why interviewing was not done by the Department. Once we wrote to the Foreign Secretary and he knew that there had been no interviewing—we wrote to him about this and told him of it on enumerable occasions—he should have given firm instructions for it to be done.
To sum up on the Ministerial aspect, although one is pleased at the outcome in this case, this has been, in a sense, an unnecessary crisis because I still believe that the Foreign Secretary could have saved the day far earlier by ordering an inquiry. I am not saying that, unaided. the Foreign Secretary would necessarily have detected subtle acts of maladministration by his officials, but that there was no need for the matter to have got as far as it did.
As for the officials concerned, I will not say much about them tonight, except that I was disturbed at some of the tendentious—I use the word advisedly—material emanating from the Foreign Office. I say with regret that the facts in this case were being over-manipulated to make out a certain case. Perhaps in a controversial matter that might sometimes be excusable, but it cannot be excused in this case.
I recall that after 1 asked Questions in the House, in November 1966, I was sent a memorandum by the then Minister of State at the Foreign Office, my hon. Friend the Member for Flint, East (Mrs. White)—I have given her notice of my intention to raise this matter tonight—arid I feel that she, apart from the officials, must accept a degree of responsibility. She wrote to me a short letter and sent me a memorandum on the case in question. The memorandum was not sent to the hon. Member for Abingdon, presumably because, by that stage, he was regarded as being past redemption. Perhaps I was not so regarded.
I was surprised at the picture of a concentration camp which appeared in the words of that memorandum. Considering the experiences of these gallant officers, the memorandum referred to Red Cross parcels, cigarettes, music, walks, bridge and so on. The examples were quite fantastic. There was no reference to the atmosphere of fear, of sudden death, in which these men lived all that time. Anyone looking at the memorandum would agree that it should not have been drawn up in quite that way; and that the Minister concerned should not have sent it out.
Again, using Parliamentary gamesmanship, in order to try to make our case I put down Written Questions which were answered by the Minister of State. In regard to Group Captain Day, I asked her specifically
… by what branch of the German armed forces he and his colleagues were administered when to Sachsenhausen concentration camp •
The argument was that where they were in the Sachsenhausen concentration camp was not a concentration camp. That was the Foreign Office argument, and the reply that was given by my hon. Friend the Member for Flint, East was that

the Sonderlager was administered by units of the Waffen SS, a part of the German armed forces. In my opinion, that was special pleading.
The point is that neither the Sonderlager nor the main camp ever came under the German armed forces at any time, and the Foreign Office Ministers should have known it. The concentration camp, as many hon. Members know who have experience of the matter, came under Himmler and under the senior officers serving under him who were concerned with these matters—first, the Lord President of the Council will remember, Heydrich and subsequently Kaltbrunner.
The SS units concerned were subordinated to the State Security Organisation. And even, of course, if it is true that many SS men served in fighting formations, the Waffen SS, and even if it is true, as the Parliamentary Commissioner reports:
 The Waffen SS absorbed the…Death's Head units…
what the Minister was trying to say was totally academic. All concentration camps —whether Sonderlager, Zellenbau or the main camp at Sachsenhausen, or any of the others—Dachau, and Buchenwald were all guarded by these Death's Head units. So if it is argued that the guards of the Sonderlager which guarded these men were part of the German armed forces then, too, it would follow that the guards of all the concentration camps were part of the German armed forces. I put it to the Ministers that that, of course, would make nonsense of all their arguments and rules that they have applied in the notes for guidance.
I believe that there has been maladministration—the Commissioner says so—and it cannot be a very happy story. But we should be charitable. The compensation fund was inadequate. Let us say that officials got into a muddle and were never able to make a fresh start. They just got deeper and deeper into this administrative mess. Perhaps, therefore, we can hear a little more from my right hon. Friend of what the Foreign Secretary has in mind in the administrative instructions he has given.
I urge the Government to conduct an administrative review. Let them appoint someone who would command respect, not only at the Foreign Office but outside


the Foreign Service. In due course, that gentleman could report to the Foreign Secretary, and his administrative report could then be available to the Parliamentary Commissioner and the Select Committee. As other hon. Members have said, the Committee must retain the right to crossexamine officials—that is a vital safeguard for our administrative process —but I do not believe that the House wants any scalps that those who fought the case so hard did so to get redress and to vindicate the honour of some gallant men. This has been done, and we are well content.

8.55 p.m.

Sir David Renton: My connection with the subject of the debate started on a lovely afternoon during the General Election of 1964. I was going along a country road, and spoke to a party of roadmenders. One of them, with a broad Irish accent, drew attention to the Anglo-German compensation agreement of which he had seen mention in the newspaper. He asked me whether I could do something about it. He saw me after the election, and told me his story.
The man was Gunner J. Spence, the last name in Appendix A. He was an Irishman who, fairly early in the war, volunteered—he did not have to, for he was living in Ireland—to serve in the British Army. He joined the Gunners and was captured. The Germans apparently tried to persuade him, as they tried to persuade many Irishmen, but Gunner Spence, like the others, remained loyal. This annoyed the Germans very much and he was put into Sachsenhausen. Mr. Spence tells me, incidentally, that although it is not mentioned in Appendix A, he was put into the cell block for some months.
In Sachsenhausen his health suffered badly. He has been able to do only very light work recently. When I said that I would take up his claim, he told me that he was not looking for a lot of money and did not expect it but that it would be nice to have some compensation to give him some of the comforts in life that he lacks. I put his case fairly early in 1965, when I wrote to the then Minister of State rather than to the Foreign Secretary. The Minister of State saw me. I spent a lot of time with him. Shed

ding tears he said, in effect, that my constituent had not got his facts right about himself—which I took a bit hard—and, secondly, that if he had got them right he was not qualified because he had not really been in the concentration camp.
Now the Parliamentary Commissioner records that Mr. Spence was in Sonderlager A from November, 1943 to April, 1945, and, as I have said, my constituent maintains that he was in the cells. The fact that his version of what had happened to himself was not accepted draws my attention to one of the more deplorable things said by the Foreign Secretary tonight.
The right hon. Gentleman had the face to say that the gallantry, honour and integrity of these men had never been in question, but I think to have questioned them and doubted their word—men who went through this experience—was in fact calling their integrity into question. But for the efforts that have been made on their behalf—and the major credit must go to my hon. Friend the Member for Abingdon (Mr. Neave)— this gross injustice would never have been put right.
Another thing which I thought extremely aggravating in the Foreign Secretary's speech was the way in which he accused my hon. Friend of making heavy weather when deploying his case. That was below the standard we expect of the Foreign Secretary and, to be fair, to him I must say I think that the whole of his performance tonight was uncharacteristic of the man himself because I think all of us who have known him know that he is a man who does not bear grudges, that, whether one agrees with him or not, he is the type of man to remain friendly. But tonight he made a speech which was in every way inappropriate and grudging.
The right hon. Member for Sowerby (Mr. Houghton) was quite right in drawing attention to the remark made by the Foreign Secretary when comparing his own judgment with that of the Parliamentary Commissioner. It misses the whole point of having a Parliamentary Commissioner if a Minister, as soon as the Parliamentary Commissioner has reported and even before his report has been considered by a Select Committee, makes a remark of that kind on the Floor of the House, and I hope that, when the time


comes, the Select Committee will heed the words of the right hon. Member for Sowerby.
We have to get this interrelationship between the House, the Government and the Parliamentary Commissioner right. In a way, it is a very good thing that fairly early in his experience and in our experience of him, the Parliamentary Commissioner has been able to fasten his attention on such a glaring case as this, and ore only hopes that out of the misfortune which this case first appeared to be, some good will come.
I can hardly find a word to express my dislike of something the Foreign Secretary said. He said that one day we might have to have an Ombudsman to survey the Ombudsman. If ever there has been a more complete defiance of our own attitudes towards the Parliamentary Commissioner and the desire of both sides of the House to see the Parliamentary Commissioner serving the House and serving our constituents in the way we all hope, it is not easy to find, and that remark was most regrettable.
As so much that is wise has already been said, it would not be right for me to take up the time of the House further, but I am sure that my constituent would like me on his behalf to express thanks to all those who have fought this matter for these 12 men of whom he is perhaps about the humblest. I should like especially to thank my hon. Friend the Member for Abingdon and the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the House—and I am sure that he will not take it amiss—for ensuring that this matter is properly dealt with and ventilated on the Floor of the House.

9.2 p.m.

Mr. Charles Pannell: I have been touched, as most of us have been, by these stories when people in our constituencies have told them to us, so that we have become part of the wider story which has had its culmination this evening.
The Foreign Secretary is not now here and so l will address my remarks to the. Minister of State, who will know of my long personal association with the Foreign Secretary. The last thing I want the Foreign Secretary to do is to read in cold print something which I could

have said far better to his head, and I would far sooner that he had been here. The Foreign Secretary did himself an ill turn this evening. I could follow the argument in the early part of his speech, and the rationalisation of his position was impeccable, but my right hon. Friend sometimes betrays himself in parentheses and goes off at half-cock, which he did this evening.
The difficulty about this matter is that by his attitude this evening the Foreign Secretary has made a reference to the Select Committee a "must". There is no question about that; that is the way it turns. In paragraph 61 of his Report the Parliamentary Commissioner said:
 The Foreign Office have represented to me, I think correctly, that as Parliamentary Commissioner I am not authorised to question the merits of the rule.
What he was really saying was that while in the last resort policy must rest with Ministers, he was questioning how the rule came about; he accepted that position.
I know the Foreign Secretary as well as anybody in the House does, and certainly far better than anybody in his Department does. He has a vein of quixotry in his nature. He is a gallant man and is very loyal, and I can honestly say that he would never have been as loyal to himself as he has been to his civil servants. He would have come cleaner on his own trouble, but he spoke as he did because he was caring for his civil servants.
We really did not want that long lecture upon him accepting responsibility. In a notable speech my hon. Friend the Member for Dewsbury (Mr. Ginsburg) made it perfectly clear that the course of events was not as the Foreign Secretary set them out. I can remember the present Commonwealth Secretary giving his analysis. I was a Minister at the time, sitting beside him on the Front Bench, and his words carried to me a complete lack of conviction. The Foreign Secretary has followed this course all the way.
He really does not seem to understand the contradiction in terms. He continually referred to these "hon. and gallant men" but did not seem to appreciate that it had been a denial that they had been hon. and gallant all the way through the piece. Their veracity had


been questioned, they had almost been accused of mendacity. They had never been given the benefit of the doubt. Take one small example from the Foreign Secretary's Parliamentary replies, through which I was browsing this afternoon. There was one thing in which he must have been betrayed. He said in one of them:
To my knowledge these men certainly received Red Cross parcels …"—[OFFICIAL REPORT. 7th November, 1966; Vol. 735, c. 978.]
That is not true. That is a careless statement. I want to deal with this on a narrow basis and, because the Foreign Secretary is absent, I must address my remarks to the Leader of the House. Whatever the procedures that we envisaged, after this the argument about the demarcation line between the Foreign Secretary and the Parliamentary Commissioner and any future Minister must be a matter to be settled once and for all.

Mr. Crossman: I made it clear in the business statement that the fact that we would debate and take note of this Report now had absolutely no effect whatever upon the investigations of the Committee. This cannot possibly affect its decision. It has its own powers and terms of reference.

Mr. Pannell: I take my right hon. Friend's point, but he will not mind me pointing out to him that there are some of my colleagues who thought that we could dispose of this here. The right hon. Member did not. Whatever doubts I have had on this have been resolved by the Foreign Secretary.
What is the cause of this thing? We have been through correspondence and representations, we have been through the Parliamentary Questions. We have been through an appeal to the Prime Minister, and at that stage someone said that the Parliamentary Commissioner should inquire into this. Acting within his terms of reference he does so. If I had been the Foreign Secretary I should have said, "The buck stops with the Parliamentary Commissioner" and we would call it a day. The House would have accepted that, without any denigration of the Foreign Secretary, and would have left the Foreign Office alone. But what the Foreign Secretary has put up is

the curious false proposition that the buck does not stop at the Parliamentary Commissioner but "the buck stops with me." We do not intend to accept that. The arguments about the Auditor General and the Public Accounts Committee are correct, because we must not put the Parliamentary Commissioner in this position in future. There must be no argument at the end of the day.
This is almost like a judicial procedure, when one calls in an arbitrator. One cannot argue afterwards. All of us, certainly those of us who have been Ministers, accept the idea of Ministerial responsibility. At no time did the Foreign Secretary say, "I dealt with my civil servants". It is his job to deal with maladministration in his own Department. The anonymity of the Civil Service is always preserved, and it is the Minister at the end of the day who has to take it, as the unfortunate Sir Thomas Dugdale took it, on very insubstantial grounds. But, having done that, it is for the Minister to turn on the Department. What are the administrative class for in the Civil Service if they are not to protect the Minister? That is the question which we must ask. They have failed to protect their Minister, and I hope that the Select Committee will do a good job when the time comes.

9.10 p.m.

Dr. M. P. Winstanley: I shall be very brief since we have been reminded that this is a short debate and other hon. Members wish to speak. In any case, the Foreign Secretary has made a statement about which 1 think we would all want to think carefully before we finally expressed our opinions. I welcome the opportunity to place one or two points on record.
First, I should like to add my congratulations, and those of my hon. and right hon. Friends, to those which have been conveyed to the hon. Member for Abingdon (Mr. Neave) for the diligence, pertinacity and energy with which he has pursued this matter and on the manner in which his diligence and energy have finally and rightly been rewarded. I do not wish to dwell particularly on the merits of the case, which have been made absolutely clear to hon. Members by the hon. Members for Abingdon, Macclesfield (Sir A. V. Harvey), Dewsbury (Mr. Ginsburg) and others so familiar with the


details of the case. They have convinced every one of us, I think, that no other action could have been taken than that which the Foreign Secretary has announced.
I endorse what the right hon. Member for Easington (Mr. Shinwell) said about this not being a party matter. It certainly is not a party matter. The doings and activities of the Parliamentary Commissioner and the way in which he works must concern all hon. Members. At some time there may be another Government. There will be other Ministers. There will certainly be other complaints. There may indeed be other Parliamentary Commissioners. But the way in which the Parliamentary Commissioner deals with these cases will be of great importance to every Member wherever he sits in the House.
I felt that after we passed the Bill dealing with the Parliamentary Commissioner there would be some difficulties. I did not expect things to go smoothly. One seldom expects anything to go smoothly in the House of Commons. We knew that complaints would be investigated and that, in some cases, the Parliamentary Commissioner would uphold them and that in others he would not. In the cases in which he upheld the complaint, clearly a Minister sooner or later would have to give an answer. There was nothing in the Act to compel the Minister to follow the directions of the Commissioner. Therefore, we knew that in some cases the Minister would accept the Parliamentary Commissioner's findings and that in others he might not accept them.
What I should not have thought would happen, however, was that a Minister would come along to the House, as the Foreign Secretary did today, and both accept them and reject them. It seemed to me that the right hon. Gentleman's speech could be understood only if he concluded it by saying that he would not accept the recommendations of the Commissioner. Having virtually argued that the findings were wrong, he went or, to tell us what he would do about the matter—in other words, that he proposed to accept the recommendations. The point has been put very eloquently by the right hon. Member for Leeds, West (Mr. C. Pannell) that it would have been better if his right hon. Frend had

merely said, "Very well; a mistake has been made, and I accept it".
The Foreign Secretary made much of the point that it was not only he as Foreign Secretary but his predecessors also who were concerned. Surely this is the whole point of the Ombudsman. When a decision has been taken there is a tendency for the decision to be perpetuated by future Ministers, and the fact that two or three successive Ministers take the same decisions does not add to its validity; it is merely a repetition of a decision which has already been taken. It is because a cycle of this kind can be set in motion that we need an officer of the kind we have now in order, sooner or later, to break the vicious circle.
What I was even more concerned about was the fact that the Foreign Secretary seemed to cast doubt on the whole concept of maladministration. He said, very clearly, that "if things have gone wrong, then Ministers have gone wrong." He returned constantly to the point that the Minister was always responsible. In other words, he appeared to reject utterly the concept that the Commissioner must deal only with maladministration. The Foreign Secretary seemed constantly to tell us that the only thing that could arise was a Ministerial decision. In other words, he seemed to be rejecting the terms of the Act. This clearly is a matter which must be looked into carefully, not only by the Select Committee, but by the House. It seemed that in his statement the Foreign Secretary was rejecting the basic idea underlying the whole work of the Parliamentary Commissioner.
I was interested, too, in the point made by the Foreign Secretary that, "We have opened the door. There may be other cases like these in which there is just as much injustice. Other people will say, 'Why not me?' ". Why indeed?

Sir Douglas Glover: Why not?

Dr. Winstanley: If there are too many of those cases, and if, in some way, people who do not have a valid claim are now induced by these proceedings to make a claim, the Foreign Secretary has nobody but himself to blame. If he stresses that some kind of compensation is being paid which should not really


have been paid but that since the Parliamentary Commissioner has recommended it he will agree to it, that almost amounts to an invitation to other people to make a claim.
Would it not have been better for the Foreign Secretary, and for the House, for him to have said that the Parliamentary Commissioner has made his decision, has looked at all the papers, decided that proper consideration was not given and has made his recommendation, and then fully to accept it? Had the Foreign Secretary said that, he would have had much more of the sympathy of this part of the House than he now has.
I would like to make a brief point concerning the holding of this debate. As a member of the Select Committee dealing with the Parliamentary Commissioner, I was inclined, like other hon. Members, to wonder about the wisdom of deciding to hold a debate of this kind before the Select Committee had an opportunity of discussing the matter. I took the view, and I still do, that, in general, the proper thing when a report of this kind has been made is for the Minister to come to the House and make a statement, on which there can be the normal exchange of questions. That would be valuable and there would be valuable further information for the Select Committee to consider. I was inclined to take that view and, in many ways, I still take it.
At the same time, I would like to say to the Leader of the House that in view of the nature of the statement made by the Foreign Secretary, it is not surprising that he decided that the statement should have been made to the House in this form. Certainly, it was not a statement in the ordinary sense. It was not the kind of statement which could have been answered by the normal exchange of questions. It was an unusual statement to make on the kind of report which is being considered. I hope that on future reports of the Parliamentary Commissioner, we do not have that kind of statement from Ministers, no matter to which side they belong.

Mr. George Brown: What was so difficult about my statement?

Dr. Winstanley: Perhaps the right hon. Gentleman was not here when I began

my speech. I said that it seemed to me to be a surprising statement in that it both rejected the findings of the Parliamentary Commissioner and, at the same time, accepted his recommendations. This seems to me to be a curious procedure. Whilst Ministers might from time to time reject a report and at other times they might accept it, to do both seems to be unusual and certainly requires the kind of debate which would not normally follow a statement.

Mr. Brown: I thought that that was what the hon. Member meant. There is no difficulty about this. I made it plain and gave my own judgment that I thought that the Parliamentary Commissioner was wrong. [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."] I said that earlier. Nevertheless, having helped to establish his position, I said that I would accept his judgment even though I thought that it was wrong. I cannot see anything surprising about that. I think that it is the right thing to do. So I have accepted his judgment. I have, therefore, authorised payment to people—

Mr. Paul Hawkins: What makes the right hon. Gentleman think that the Parliamentary Commissioner's judgment was wrong?

Mr. Brown: I personally think it is wrong, but the Ombudsman thinks it is right, and I do not propose to start him off with a situation in which I argue against his judgment. So as the Minister—

Mr. Michael Jopling: Mr. Michael Jopling (Westmorland) rose—

Mr. Speaker: Order. We cannot have an intervention upon an intervention.

Mr. Brown: As a Minister I have agreed to accept the view of the Parliamentary Commissioner. I cannot understand why the hon. Gentleman thinks that is so ridiculous.

Mr. Speaker: Mr. Molloy.

Dr. Winstanley: Dr. Winstanley rose—

Mr. Speaker: Order. I understood that the hon. Member had made his peroration and challenged the Foreign Secretary to comment. He has made his comment.

Sir D. Glover: On a point of order. If the hon. Member for Cheadle (Dr. Winstanley) had made his peroration, the Foreign Secretary was out of order in his interjection.

Mr. Speaker: Order. The hon. Member ought to accept the Chair's guidance on what is in order.

9.23 p.m.

Mr. William Molloy: For those of us who have been very closely concerned over the past eighteen months, nearly two years, with this issue, this evening has been a notable milestone in a continuing story. This may not be the end of the story, but I think it is the happiest part of it—if that is the word to use in these circumstances. Back benchers, led so ably by the hon. Member for Abingdon (Mr. Neave), have been campaigning against the administration by both parties, the previous Conservative Government as well as this Government. I think it is right and proper that hon. Members on both sides who have been concerned with this case should express our thanks to my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House for allowing this debate. I think we should also say a word of thanks to the hon. Members on both sides who signed the Motion which, I believe, contributed to pointing out to the Leader of the House the desirability of having this debate.
The facts of this matter are redolent of the degrading filth associated with all the evils of Nazism, and the terms used in this debate are terms which caused terror, anger, annoyance to millions of people all over the world, and not only to those British officers who were involved in this case—terms such as concentration camp, extermination camp, gas chambers, torture chambers, the S.S. They are all horrid and repugnant terms which caused annoyance and deep anger all over the world. To quality for treatment in any of those places was simply to have opposed the Nazi regime.
We have to be fair in examining this question at the stage which it has reached. I hope that the Select Committee will continue its examination of the matter by examining all the points which have been made in this debate as well as other matters which will be laid before the Committee, and I hope it will take note of this, and that the House will take note

of it, too, that those of us who campaigned for these British Service men who suffered this sort of treatment felt ourselves tightly restricted when we realised the implications of what I would call the "Butler Agreement", which was too narrow, which was too mean, which was too hastily devised. It was an appalling agreement, and it placed shackles upon our endeavours to try to get justice for these people. That has to be acknowledged. Instead of drawing up these nice, tidy, legalistic documents, all that was necessary was to say that anyone who suffered the vile and barbarous behaviour of Nazism should be entitled to consideration for some form of compensation, irrespective of where they suffered it. That is something of which cognisance should have been taken early on, when the Butler Agreement was negotiated.

Mr. Michael English: Would my hon. Friend agree that it would have been sufficient to say that any prisoner who was not treated in accordance with the Hague Convention was entitled to full compensation, instead of the Foreign Office inventing an agreement of its own?

Mr. Molloy: My hon. Friend has missed my point. I am of the opinion that any British national, in or out of uniform, who suffered at the hands of these barbarians should have had the right to compensation after the war.
Those of us who have been involved in this case are mindful of the fact that there are thousands of cases which are just as horrible and thousands of people who suffered in the service of their nation, as my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary said. The agreement and the formula which had to be devised to suit it made it very difficult for anyone to be generous. There were Servicemen who were taken prisoner and shot out of hand. Their relatives will not qualify under the formula. Prisoners were put underground in solitary confinement for seven or eight months at a time, with hardly any food. According to the Butler Agreement, they were not in a concentration camp.
We have arrived at a situation where the officers concerned are to receive some measure of justice. Without it, it seemed that the only possible way of convincing


the Foreign Office would have been to get the guards who locked them up to come and tell the Foreign Office about the treatment these men received. That is how absurd the situation was.
For those who qualify under the Agreement, this is a test case. If there are others who believe that they qualify, I hope that they will make representations to have their case re-examined. However, I do not believe that this is a test case to end all test cases. Surely that cannot be.
What has happened this evening is a compliment to Parliament as a whole. We hear so much these days from gentlemen who write to the Press, but they are not involved in the private and personal problems of our constituents, who tell us in confidence about them. On this occasion, I hope that the gentlemen of the Press will acknowledge that Parliament has done a good job, but it must not be forgotten that our success has been contributed to in large measure by the establishment of the Parliamentary Commissioner. Without it, we would have got nowhere.
Fundamentally, the reason for our success tonight is the tenacity and courage of the hon. Member for Abingdon, who started this off and has seen it through to the end. Above all—the Parliamentary Commissioner, the Foreign Office, and the rest—he has upheld the great traditions of the House. The Parliamentary Commissioner was appointed to establish where injustice had been done because of maladministration and, inevitably, to expose it. If it were otherwise, we should have to accept a blank cheque from him. I believe that it was right for him to act as he did. I know full well that if this could have been done solely by my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary—if he was given almighty power—not only these officers, but thousands of others would have been compensated by as much as he could have given them.
I know his true feelings on the matter. He has taken a gallant stand concerning his officials, but at the same time I think that one can be too loyal. He has even taken the risk of damaging his own name in defending officials of his Department. But he has to reconcile, somehow or

other, that he, too, can share the credit in establishing the Parliamentary Commissioner whose job it is to winkle out the sort of cases that we have had in this instance. I hope that he will recall this.
This case had another aspect; namely, that in years to come the record will no doubt be examined. If it had gone the wrong way, historians and people in the future might have said: "Were these men telling the truth? After all, they put up a good case. We believe they did, but the fact of the matter was that in the end they were turned down." I believe that would have impugned their honour. I know this from personal contact with these officers. The aspect which was giving them concern and worry more than anything else was that the future record might have doubted their story. They have been living with this agonising frustration for many months indeed.
Under the most able leadership of the hon. Member for Abingdon, I believe we have made two contributions. First, we have made a contribution in re-establishing the authority and dignity of Parliament and, secondly, we have cleared these gallant officers of any doubt that might have hung about their names. If there was any doubt, it has now been removed. This exercise has been worth while, if only for that.
I know that the Leader of the House wishes to wind up the debate. I would add, however, that this has been not so much a triumph, but a mark of approval by the House of Commons and the British people of the efforts of the hon. Member for Abingdon, of those who supported him, of the whole procedure of the House of Commons, Parliament itself, and, last but not least, what we have added to the power of investigation of the Parliamentary Commissioner to defend individuals. This is not so much a triumph as a vindication of gallant men whose service to the nation was never in doubt. It has shown that they were right to engage upon this issue and, in my estimation, it was right and proper that we should make our contribution to ensuring their success in clearing their honour for evermore.

9.22 p.m.

Dame Irene Ward: I have but a few minutes, because I know


that the Leader of the House wishes to rise at 20 minutes to 10, and we are all wanting to hear what he has to say.
I would like to have one thing put on record. Criticism was made of the Butler Agreement that was obtained from the Federal German Government. It should be pointed out that it was my hon. Friend the Member for Abingdon (Mr. Neave), when the Conservative Government were in power, who started the original agitation to get a substantial contribution from the Federal German Government to deal with this kind of case. That arose from his knowledge and experience of what certain people had to face during the time of the German war. But it was a very long time before the House of Cornmons realised how necessary and essential it was to obtain such an agreement from the Federal German Government. It is a long time ago, but I think I am right in saying that though the Treaty was made between the Conservative Government and the Federal German Government, the actual conditions for distribution were laid down by the present Government when they took office. In other words, the Conservative Administration sent out all the advertisements to get people to put in their applications to be considered when the fund was allocated but the present Government had the responsibility of distributing the funds. It is important to get the record straight on this, because we do not want any inaccuracies creeping into our debate.
I am glad that I am a member of the Select Committee on the Parliamentary Commissioner, because I hope that this whole matter will be fully discussed by it. I would like to say, because it has not been said in specific terms, despite all the congratulations which have been offered to my hon. Friend and those who have supported him, that if it had not been for him, and if there had not been a Parliamentary Commissioner, whatever the Foreign Secretary might have thought about it, we should never have won the case.
I listened carefully to the opening remarks of the Foreign Secretary when he was discussing the constitutional position. Originally, I was not particularly in favour of having a Parliamentary Commissioner, but after this success I see all sorts of possibilities for extending his

powers. However hard my hon. Friend worked, if we had not had the Parliamentary Commissioner we could not have obtained the decision of the Foreign Secretary to compensate these men who were in this portion of the camp. This proves that even in this great Parliamentary democracy of ours we can sometimes improve our constitution to the benefit of the public whom we are supposed to serve.

9.37 p.m.

The Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons (Mr. Richard Crossman): This has been an extremely interesting, and for once one can justifiably use the cliché unprecedented, debate, because this is our first debate on a well-known case presented to the House in a special Report from the Parliamentary Commissioner.
I say right away to the hon. Lady the Member for Tynemouth (Dame Irene Ward) that she is right about the facts. The actual distribution of the fund was carried out by this Government, but I think the hon. Lady is also right to emphasise that the principle was laid down by our predecessors in two particulars, and they were two vital particulars. I shall deal with the one about policy later. One principle was that we should, broadly, compensate those who were in concentration camps, without much criticism or discussion, but those outside should be subjected to the suffering test. That was the first Butler principle. The second was that we should do it administratively, that we should speed it up and not hand it to the War Claims Commission which would look at it judicially and spend years on it. We should take the risk of not being quite so meticulous, and distribute the money quickly to those involved. These are the two principles which we inherited. These are the principles on which the actions took place which were criticised by the Parliamentary Commissioner.
I think we can all agree that the debate this evening demonstrates the effect which an individual back bencher can have. We sometimes say that individuals cannot do anything, but here we have a good example of a few back benchers—I do not know how many formed the nucleus—getting something done. The matter was pushed by back benchers, and, as I was


reminded, pushed by Early Day Motions, which have their effect on Leaders of the House. When they are signed by many hon. Members it becomes awkward for him to decide what to do week after week, as I know, and therefore the existence of the Parliamentary Commissioner came as a merciful deliverance to the Leader of the House. He was able to persuade the highly sceptical inner group who said that they wanted justice at once, and doubted the Commissioner's powers, when he staked everything on being able to surprise the hon. Lady by the way he acted.
Before this debate the Parliamentary Commissioner was a figure of fun in some circles. During the debates on his appointment it was fashionable on the Conservative benches to say that we were laying down and limiting his powers in such a way as to make him hopelessly ineffective. In many ways, one became anxious about whether his powers were so limited that he could not be effective. One of the things which the Select Committee will examine is how far his powers extend, and whether Schedule 3 can be used to extend them further. These are all areas for discussion. What we have now admitted for the first time—there were some sceptics on this side as well—is that the Parliamentary Commissioner, when a case falls within his jurisdiction, does a thorough job.
I would remind the House that the powers which he was given—again, something which was not accepted at the time —are unique. He has a power of investigation greater than any back bencher or Minister because he is empowered to look at the most secret documents and all the files, to cross-examine every official and Minister from the top to the bottom, and has in his one personality, greater power of investigation than anyone has ever had before. What we look at in the Report is the top of the iceberg. What he has been able to print is but a fraction of the amount which he obtained, upon the basis of which he built these conclusions.
One must remember, therefore, that he has had an absolutely unique six months, to which British administration has not been subjected previously. We have invented here an instrument of investiga-

tion sharper, more precise, going deeper, than ever before. Ministries must now accept the fact that this is a constitutional innovation, that they are subjected to this kind of examination. Of course, when the first examination comes, it produces constitutional innovations. Some back benchers were deeply suspicious of the Parliamentary Commissioner taking their work away, and said that they did not want him because he would do it for them. I hope that these views are reduced, now that we see that there are cases in which the back bencher cannot get through without this kind of deep examination.
For Whitehall and the Government, the existence of a Parliamentary Commissioner with these powers creates constitutional innovations which will take some time to sort out. From time to time, as in this case, a man can say on a well-known case, "I disagree with the Government or with the Foreign Office in certain particulars", and that he thinks that there has been "maladministration", in his own word. That is a constitutional innovation, that any one has the authority and power to say so in something which is printed and put to the House.
Thus, when we are discussing it, we are discussing both our delight—at least my delight—that a redress of grievance has been achieved in this remarkable way and the House can be pleased with that, but I am also interested and delighted that we have now been able, thoughtfully for three hours, to discuss this constitutional innovation, and what should be the proper reaction of the Government and the House to it.
Some members of the Select Committee were critical of me for putting it to debate now. It was done for a simple reason—that anyone who heard the debate would know that the speech which the Foreign Secretary felt it his duty to make, and was proud to make, could not be made as a statement at the end of Question Time. If we were to understand the issue involved and if the Select Committee were to understand whatever maladministration there was, we needed the kind of statement which could not be made at the end of Question Time but only in a debate in the House. We got our general debate to study how we would swallow and assimilate this innovation—

Mr. Buck: On this point of constitutional innovation, perhaps the right hon. Gentleman can assist the House further. The Foreign Secretary implied, on his personal behalf, that he did not accept the conclusions of the Parliamentary Commissioner. Is this the view of the Government, that they do not accept these conclusions, or is it just the personal position of the Foreign Secretary? This also would raise constitutional innovations.

Mr. Crossman: My right hon. Friend deliberately put the matter to the House because the House must face the fact that a Department of State and a Minister have taken a certain view. They have conscientiously done the job and then the Ombudsman says, "You were wrong in these particulars". The view of some hon. Members is that one should automatically accept not only the conclusion hut all the findings as well. It is not my view that this is automatically so. Frankly, the House must proceed by experiment in this relationship between Government, the Parliamentary Commissioner, and the House. It is an innovation, and we shall have to work our way towards a procedure. What my right hon. Friend said was quite clear. He said that he personally did not accept all that was found in the Report. This seems to me to be the logical and sensible position to adopt. No doubt, the Government will consider the Report. Like the Select Committee, no doubt we shall consider the constitutional innovations which arise. It is difficult to do this except in practice, because we need to proceed by experience of how it works in practice.
I have one or two further points to make about the investigation. First, if it is a remarkable constitutional innovation, at the same time its extent is extremely limited. That is a point which the Parliamentary Commissioner emphasied. He said that he could deal only with maladministration; he could not challenge any of the so-called Butler rules. He could not challenge the principle on which the distributions were made, although he made it clear that he thought that the principle led to some extraordinary results. He was not entitled to decide Government policy. He was entitled only to take the narrow question, assuming that the policy was right

"Has anybody suffered injustice as a result of the administration of the policy in a false or improper way, or without attention to all the relevant facts?"
He came to the conclusion that even if he accepted the policy—which may in many ways be unacceptable—and accepted that if the distribution were done administratively and not through a court there must be a much greater chance of imperfection, then his view was that there were still two particulars in which there was maladministration; but they were within this narrow limit.
I personally listened to some of the speeches today with some amazement. At the end of the war I spent the last days in opening concentration camps and I saw a great deal of this opening process. I saw it as it actually happened, and I saw the last Nazi concentration camps being destroyed. If anybody tells me that it is easy to know what went on in a concentration camp, I do not believe him. In a concentration camp—and here there were 40,000 people—there were people living in a town which was separated from outside, as it were, by Chinese walls, with a dreadful sense of isolation, one section isolated from another. A point which puzzles me is that the whole principle upon which compensation was paid was the view that everybody in a concentration camp must be assumed to have undergone terrible suffering. But anyone who studied concentration camps knows that inside them there were those who exploited and those who were exploited. These camps were organised systematically by the Germans with the inmates as exploiters and exploited. There were the few rich and comfortable inmates, and there was, on the other hand, the vast mass of suffering. Nothing was simple and no generalisation was true.
Out of this came the difficulty that any simple rule which we made for deciding how to distribute this fund was bound to produce anomalies. Under the rules, anybody in a concentration camp must be assumed to have had a rough time and anybody outside a concentration camp must prove that he had a very rough time, and in a number of cases that produced grave injustice.
A second question concerned the definition of "inside" and "outside".


It was on the geographical definition of "inside" and "outside" that the difference of opinion between the Parliamentary Commissioner and the Foreign Office is sharpest. He simply said that in his view they were wrong about Sonderlager, although it was a doubtful case, and that they were certainly wrong about Zellenbau, because that was within the perimeter. It is interesting to note that it is in this area in which he blames the Foreign Office for faulty judgment. It is no more than that because we must remember that we are talking about something 20 years later. We are talking about whether something happened inside or outside a concentration camp.
It is my guess that this faulty judgment, as it has been called, arose because of what I have described as the astonishing variety between the types of life that went on. When one discovers that some people were living, so to speak, in the lap of luxury compared with those who were living inside and were suffering appallingly, one might wish to define them as being outside, but one is inclined not to do so because of saying, "If I define them as such, it will spoil my theory."
I mention this to show that we must see this in a reasonable perspective. It is in this light that we must see the area of difference between the Parliamentary Commissioner and the Foreign Office. It is in that sense that we must consider where these two places, inside and outside were. The judgment is of importance only because of the rule that the people inside are likely to get compensation while those outside are unlikely to get any. Without that rule the distinction would not have been sufficient.
I come to the second point of maladministration, the reaction of the Foreign Office when its initial judgment was challenged by this group of people and the new evidence which they had produced. The Parliamentary Commissioner rebukes the Foreign Office for its disregard of the evidence and for claiming that it knew better. Here we are dealing with a question of judgment. and not of improper motives concerning something that happened 20 years before.

Sir A. V. Harvey: Does not the right hon. Gentleman think that the Foreign Office would have been able to have formed a better judgment if it had inter-

viewed these officers personally, rather than for the Foreign Secretary to have done so at the end of the day?

Mr. Crossman: I ran a Department and, in this position, I consider that if a Minister says, "I will do this myself; the Department need not do it", then that Minister must take the decision himself and do the interviewing himself. This is not maladministration in any normal sense. It is merely a Minister saying. "I will take on the job and I will interview them." If a Minister, who is entitled to do so, says that, then it is up to him to make the decision and to do the job.
I come to the remarkable speech of my right hon. Friend the Member for Sowerby (Mr. Houghton). Of course, it is true—I said it earlier when asked—that the Select Committee's right to investigate or examine this Report—which is presented to it as well as to the House—is absolutely unaffected by the fact that we are now taking note of the Report and having an initial discussion here on the role of the Ombudsman. It is a good thing that this is happening. Perhaps the Select Committee, being aware of this discussion, may to some extent profit in the deliberations which it will no doubt have on the Report.
On the whole, what struck me as strange was the reaction of hon. Gentlemen opposite to my right hon. Friend's assertion that, in this particular case—and he was referring to this particular case—he did not feel that there was much to investigate by way of the conduct of civil servants. Why did my right hon. Friend say that? I suggest that he had good reason for saying it, and I say it as a Minister.
My right hon. Friend said that this is one of those cases in which Ministers have been concerned throughout. It is not one of those cases where Ministers are brought in at the last moment. From the start to the end, Ministers—in other words, politicians—have been intimately concerned. They drew up the rules at the beginning. They were Ministers and politicians' rules, with civil servants advising them. We took the whole thing over and the policy was unchanged. Ministers administered the thing in a certain way and, as I said, test cases and anomalies came up. They were anomalies which we inherited from this method of


saying, "Everybody in a concentration camp will have the benefit of the doubt." As I explained, a good many did not deserve it, but they got the benefit of the doubt.
The point is that once one observes rules, one gets into a semantic interpretation of. them and those rules become odder and odder—that is, if one keeps to them. And the rules had to be kept for this method of distribution. The Foreign Secretary says, "I give you my ward that throughout this I personally took all the decisions. I took the matter out of the hands of my civil servants. I did it myself." When a Minister says that, then that is what happened. That is why I do not understand why this is being treated as being such an astonishing statement, for it is clearly true in this case.
It was true of the Minister and his team. They took the keenest interest in this case; and if the Minister concerned says, "I came to this decision. It was not the same as the Ombudsman's view, but I am still inclined to think that I have some right on my side ", then that seems a not unreasonable attitude for him to adopt. It does not seem to be constitutionally improper. Indeed, a Minister ought to stand up for his power of decision, especially when he actually took the decision, as there is no doubt my right hon. Friend did on this occasion. He agreed with it. He now says, "Right, I have listened. I have read this Report and I have admired it, but I have to admit that, though I shall pay up, in some ways I still think I am right." That seems to be rational. If we were to take the view that Ministers had automatically to stand on their heads and say the opposite of what they thought directly the Ombudsman came up with a view, we would have an impossible position.
The fact is that the creation of the Ombudsman has produced a complete constitutional innovation here—

Mr. Molloy: Mr. Molloy rose—

Mr. Crossman: No, I am sorry—I want to finish this point.
To say that an official of the House shall, first of all, have powers of investigation greater than those of any Minister or anyone else in this House and, on that basis, shall publish his conclusions about the working of the administration in Whitehall is a revolutionary innovation. We always knew that it would work only if we chose the right man for the job, and only if he did the right kind of work, which is what the Report represents. The Report is a magnificent example of something that has shaken things up, made people think twice, reversed what many hon. Members thought was an injustice, and persuaded the Foreign Secretary to change his mind. Those are good and healthy things to do, but it is also good and healthy for the Government to say that they will not always agree to change their minds—

Mr. F. V. Corfield: The right hon. Gentleman is saying that the Foreign Secretary has come to the conclusion that those men did not suffer the degree of hardship that was regarded as necessary. Is it not clear that that is against all the evidence, and against all the conclusions drawn by every hon. Member?

Mr. Crossman: I do not think that the hon. Member was present during most of the debate. That is not what the Foreign Secretary said, and the hon. Member knows it. What the Foreign Secretary said was that these were—heaven knows—border line decisions about things of 20 years ago on which opinions can differ. We have an Ombudsman for the purpose of settling disputes. My right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary says, "Thank you, Ombudsman, for making a difficult decision. I grudge it you a bit, but I give it to you just the same." That seems to be a healthy position.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,
That this House takes note of the Third Report of the Parliamentary Commissioner for Administration (House of Commons Paper No. 54).

FOOT-AND-MOUTH DISEASE (PLOUGHING GRANTS)

9.58 p.m.

The Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (Mr. John Mackie): I beg to move,
That the Ploughing Grants (Emergency Payments) Scheme 1968, a draft of which was laid before this House on 22nd January, be approved.
Many farmers who have suffered as a result of the foot-and-mouth epidemic will have set about reorganising and rehabilitating their farms, and some who have latterly had the disease on their farms will be considering how to reorganise and rehabilitate. It is our intention to provide special assistance to all those farmers in going about this task. In particular, we are anxious to ease the pressure for replacement stock. Hon. Members will be aware of the Register of Livestock being organised by the National Farmers Union, and of the special effort which the National Agricultural Advisory Service is making to advise farmers on how best to get on their feet again.
The special ploughing-up grant will supply assistance of a different kind. We hope that by offering farmers a material contribution towards getting a different kind of income for a season, the pressure for going into the market for replacement stock will be reduced, and any upward tendency in the level of prices will, we hope, be considerably moderated.
Hon. Members will have noted that the Scheme is applicable to England and Wales only, and will have appreciated that this is because the outbreak has spread no further.
We have every confidence that the measures which have been adopted will prevent any widening of the infected area and are encouraged by the declining numbers of new cases over recent weeks. I must add, however, that every fresh outbreak—and there have been two tonight—emphasises that great vigilance is still required. In spite of the decline in the incidence of the disease, I cannot emphasis this too much.
We at the Ministry are not infrequently accused of devising unnecessarily compli-

cated schemes, but I think that right hon. and hon. Members are aware that the reason for this is usually the need to ensure that public money is spent wisely and where it is needed most. Particular care has been taken that the £10 ploughing grant, which is an emergency measure designed to help farmers in particularly difficult circumstances, should be as simple as possible to understand and with as few strings as possible. The only point which it has been necessary to set out in some detail concerns eligibility. We have had to be careful here in order to ensure that the grant is available to those for whom it is intended and that unreasonable advantage is not taken of it.
There are two main classes of farmer to whom the grant will be available. The first is the man whose livestock has been slaughtered on his holding due to the disease. This is the circumstance that will apply in the majority of cases. It will also take in the farmer whose neighbour has suffered an outbreak of the disease and whose stock has been slaughtered as a firebreak to prevent the spread of infection. Sometimes in this circumstance the stock is driven on to the infected holding before being slaughtered, but this will not debar land ploughed up on the farm where they were kept previously from receiving grant aid.
The other main category of farmer who will be eligible is the man whose stock had been sent on agistment or which was being grazed out on common or moor land associated with the main holding and there caught the disease and was slaughtered. Although the animals were destroyed away from the holding, their owner will still be able to plough up his fields and obtain grant, but if he has several holdings he will only be able to select one of these, which must be one from which the animals came before being agisted or grazed out, because we think it would be unreasonable for a farmer who had livestock on, say, the Welsh hills destroyed because of the disease to obtain grant for ploughing up several farms in, perhaps, Wiltshire or Norfolk, on the strength of the Welsh outbreak.
As I have said, the other conditions of the Scheme are simple, but perhaps hon.


Members may wish me to run through them quickly. The land ploughed up must have been continuously under grass since before 25th October, 1967, which was the date of the first outbreak of the disease, and at the time of ploughing. The fact that it may have benefited under previous ploughing grants schemes will not render it ineligible, except for land which has been grant-aided under the 1967 scheme.
We thought it unreasonable to permit land which had been ploughed up and re-seeded since 1st June, 1967, to be ploughed up again under the Emergency Scheme, but considered that, since farmers may have to revise their planning drastically because of the consequences of the disease, benefit under earlier schemes should not debar them from this one. Prior inspection is not required. We wished to ensure that farmers who had already ploughed up following an outbreak were not thereby debarred from grant and also to avoid delaying those who wished to go ahead at once.
Hon. Members will note, however, that it is a condition of the Scheme that the land must be suitable for ploughing and cropping, and applicants who are in any doubt on this score are being advised to seek guidance from the N.A.A.S. immediately.
We are, as far as is practicable, arranging to follow up all inquiries with technical visits in order to ensure that farmers have proper advice and do not harm their own long-term interests by ploughing up unsuitable land. Grant is payable on completion of ploughing and one of the subsequent operations listed in the Schedule to the Scheme—for example, harrowing, discing or the spreading of lime or fertiliser. The subsequent operation is necessary because it is a condition of the Agriculture (Ploughing Grants) Act, 1952, under which this Scheme is being made. There is no requirement to sow a particular crop, but the main emphasis of the Scheme will be to assist farmers to augment their incomes with a cash crop, and we hope that farmers will take advantage of that.
I do not think that I need take further time to explain other provisions of the Scheme, many of which will be familiar to hon. Members from earlier ploughing

grants schemes. They include the dates during which operations may be carried out, the provision of adequate facilities for inspection, requiring applications for grant to be made in due form, and so on.
I am sure that hon. Members will join me in welcoming this special form of assistance for those who have suffered as a consequence of this disastrous epidemic, and I commend the Scheme to the House.

10.6 p.m.

Sir Clive Bossom: The Minister's action in giving additional ploughing grants has reassured the farmers and they are most grateful. It will especially encourage dairy farmers to delay restocking in order to ease the pressure in the market for dairy stock and thus avoid the creation of artificially high prices.
However, in Herefordshire we have a rather special problem, as the Minister is aware. There are many types of farmers, but we have two types, both small farmers, the hill farmers and the commoners, who feel that they have been slightly cheated as they are unable to take advantage of the additional ploughing grant. The Minister well knows that in England and Wales there are about 1,500,000 acres of common land, and in a small county like Herefordshire 89 pieces of common land had been registered by Hereford County Council by 31st December, last year.
As the Minister knows, some of these are commons of only half an acre. Eleven are of more than 100 acres, and there are several, like Bromyard Downs and Bircher Common, of approximately 300 acres. Most of them have stock on them and the commoners have little or no other land which they could plough. I hope that the Minister will look into these special cases again, as these farmers feel that they have been left out in the cold.
Past legislation provides for compensation at market value, which has been quite fair, because, generally speaking, there has been very little delay, but on this occasion market values have increased as the numbers of stock slaughtered have increased. There is also the problem of continuing inflation. That is why I want the Minister to try to persuade the Treasury to have a


second look at exempting from Income Tax the compensation money paid for young animals and beef cattle—I understand that the Minister is now considering a scheme to restore some of the money in the form of a grant and he knows that that would be most welcome for those who are trying to buy young beef cattle.

Mr. Speaker: Order. We cannot discuss taxation exemption on this Order, which deals with giving money to certain farmers.

Sir C. Bossom: At the same time, I hope that during these next few weeks the Minister will consider raising the level of farm prices and grants for this year's Farm Price Review.

Mr. Speaker: Order. We certainly cannot discuss the Farm Price Review on this Order.

Sir C. Bossom: I apologise, Mr. Speaker, but I was trying to back up my hill farmers and commoners who do a good job in difficult conditions. I appreciate that it is difficult to help them under this Scheme, but I hope that the Minister will not forget them.

10.9 p.m.

Mr. Grant-Ferris: I am sure that the overwhelming majority of farmers stricken by this terrible plague, and certainly the majority of farmers in my constituency, will greatly welcome the £10 ploughing grant which the Minister has introduced. The news came in those dark days before Christmas when the plague was only just past its height, and it brought a ray of hope for the future.
I want to show some of the difficulties which the Ministry will have in administering this grant with fairness and justice to all farms. I would like to give a particular instance which I have investigated in the last few days. On Saturday afternoon I called a meeting of my constituent farmers in a particular area, centred on the not inappropriately named parish of Wettenhall, to find out what their views were about the grant in view of the fact that it would be virtually impossible for them to make any practical use of it.
What I want to give to the Minister is the size and scope of their particular

area. It is, in fact, about 4,500 acres, virtually in a ring fence. It represents 30 or 40 farmers farming on average about 150 acres, or something of that nature. During the war they did plough up their land and some of it has not yet recovered. It seems very unlikely that any of them will want to take advantage of this £10 ploughing grant, and there is nothing in that which can particularly help them.
The Joint Parliamentary Secretary has read out paragraph 4(b) which says:
…in the opinion of the Minister, suitable for ploughing and cropping;".
Is the Minister, in the shape of his advisers in the area, to allow an over-keen farmer to plough land which is obviously not really fit for ploughing, and if he does so what about paragraph 6(a) which says:
the ploughing or any other operation in respect of which grant under this scheme may be made has been inefficiently carried out•"?
Having been allowed to plough he may, as the hon. Gentleman knows, make a terrible mess of it. We are dealing with land which has a very thin top-soil, about 2½ to 3 in., and ghastly clay underneath. Something will have to be done to help here.
I know that you are watching me very carefully, Mr. Speaker, because you may be expecting me to make suggestions which might not be in order—

Mr. Speaker: Order. The hon. Gentleman is one of my Chairmen and would never get out of order.

Mr. Grant-Ferris: I was afraid that you might say that, Mr. Speaker, and I will do my best not to get out of order. If I may very briefly be allowed to make a suggestion, I promise that if you so much as lift an eyebrow I will cease immediately. If something could be done in the nature of the £10 grant to help with drainage and option given to choose this then those farmers could use that to the immense and permanent benefit of the countryside there and of the country in general. I will not press that now because to go any further, Mr. Speaker, would not meet with your approbation at all.
I know that the Joint Parliamentary Secretary, who is an expert in this, quite apart from being a Minister, will know


exactly what I am driving at. If he would say that he will, not necessarily give his sympathetic consideration, because that implies that I expect that he will do it, but if he will really consider the matter and see what can be done for these unfortunate constituents of mine, not only in this ring fence of which I have spoken, but as well as for farmers in other parts of the county, where ploughing is absolutely impossible, it will be the just, right and proper thing to do, I welcome this draft Scheme.

10.14 p.m.

Sir John Foster: I should like to ask the Minister whether, when he administers the Measure, he will have in mind the fact that it is a little unwise for him to be judge in his own cause. In paragraph 4(1)(b) he has the power to decide whether land is suitable for ploughing or cropping. In most Acts and rules and regulations there is a form of appeal, if it is only to an independent inspector who might be a member of the Ministry. Should we leave it to the Minister to decide whether land is suitable for ploughing and cropping? There might be a genuine difference of opinion. I hope that we shall have an assurance that the Minister will bear that in mind and that if it comes to a dispute with a farmer he will appoint somebody in his Ministry who can be regarded as independent to decide the dispute.
The same point applies to paragraph 6(a). There the matter is a bit more serious because the Minister may decide that ploughing has not been efficiently carried out. Having acted in a judicial capacity and decided that the ploughing has not been efficiently carried out, the Minister can withhold the grant or reduce the amount. I am surprised that one of the bodies which are meant to consider these Orders in Council did not make this point. One does not want to pray against the Scheme because it is for the benefit of the farmers, but I hope that the Minister will bear this point in mind and that we shall have an assurance that he wi11 deal with it in such a way that his judicial function is separated from his executive function.
In my constituency there is some land which would not have paragraph 4(1)(b) in its favour because it is unsuitable for ploughing and cropping. I should like to reinforce the plea made by my hon.

Friends. It is not the farmer's fault that their land is not suitable for ploughing— it is in the nature of things—and some grant, perhaps for draining or some other agricultural improvement, would meet the case.

10.17 p.m.

Mr. Michael Jopling: Like my hon. Friends and others who have spoken, I welcome the Scheme. It will give some help in those areas which tragically have been afflicted by this disease in the last few months. Principally, it will allow a breathing space to farmers in these areas before they restock their land for animal husbandry, for which their farms and land is most suitable. To grow arable crops is a bit of a gamble and a bit of a hedge, but a subsidy of this sort will make it just viable.
Paragraph 2(2) of the Scheme provides that the land can be reseeded with grass. This I applaud. I do not want to go into the merits of grassland improvement, but the Minister knows that a great deal of the grassland in this country cannot be improved by reseeding. The breathing space which the Scheme gives will be enormously valuable and will mean that in years to come grassland will be very much more productive than it has been in the immediate past.
I wish to ask a specific question which has bothered me before. It bothered me particularly when we last debated Ploughing Grants Schemes on 23rd May, 1966. I asked the Minister—and I ask the same question tonight—why the 1967 Scheme could not be extended to include the new methods of grassland reseeding about which I know he is well aware because he referred to them in c. 176 of HANSARD for 23rd May, 1966. As the Minister knows, the new methods of killing off the old sward by chemical means and then, three weeks later, doing direct reseeding into the killed sward with a tool such as a rotor seeder can be extremely effective. I say that because I have done this on my own farm.
On the sort of land about which we have been talking tonight, particularly of the description given by my hon. Friend the Member for Nantwich (Mr. GrantFerris)—strong, heavy land—that type of husbandry for reseeding could well be effective. It may well be that that wet,


strong, often ridge and furrow, land could be better reseeded by these chemical methods and that a machine such as a rotor seeder, which, in my experience, is very good at getting over uneven ground, could be an extremely effective method.
I ask the Minister, when he replies, to expand on something which has worried me and to which my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Northwich (Sir J. Foster) has referred—that is, the meaning of paragraph 4(1,b), which provides that the grant can be paid only when the land ploughed up is
suitable for ploughing and cropping".
I hope that the Minister tonight will tell us exactly what criteria his officers will use when they say that land is suitable for ploughing and cropping. There is much land which is not suitable for ploughing but is suitable for spraying and rotary reseeding. I could find a number of the Minister's advisory officers who would agree with that view. I hope that we shall hear from the Minister tonight concerning appeals, to which reference has already been made, and what criteria his officers will use concerning suitability for ploughing and cropping.

10.22 p.m.

Mr. Peter Mills: I, too, would like to echo the statement by the Minister that there is need for vigilance in this problem. It is always with us and there must be no relaxation.
In principle, of course, I accept the need for help for these farmers who have suffered so considerably. Emergency payments and help are vital to get them on their feet again. I accept that the Scheme tried to do this and tries also to ease the pressure on the buying of dairy stock. If everybody started to buy replacements, the cost would be enormous. I accept fully that in the Scheme that is what the Government are trying to do
I disagree, however, with my hon. Friends on this side of the House. I question whether the Scheme is the right way of helping those farmers in the problems which they are experiencing. The ploughing up of grass, which the Scheme encourages, has its drawbacks and its dangers. On farms with land

which is suitable for ploughing up and for the growing of cereals, that is the right way of doing it, but I suspect that much of this land, because it has been used for milk production and dairy farming, is not really suitable for ploughing up. Therefore, I am sorry to say so, but I believe that although the Scheme has been brought forward to help those farmers, it will not do so in the long run.
When they plough up under the Scheme, many of these farmers will not have the necessary equipment to deal with the grain or whatever crop is grown. They will not have the ploughs, the combine harvesters or the storage facilities. It would certainly not be worth buying this equipment for one year. I question, therefore, whether the Scheme will bring the help that many farmers need.
I should like to raise one or two practical points about ploughing up. When ploughing up for cereals, there is always the danger that it will be difficult to get the land back into grassland. When the land is ploughed, ridges and depressions are formed and this is not helpful in reseeding when the modern grassland equipment is used. Certainly if in these unsuitable areas they do plough up, which is what this Scheme encourages them to do, we shall find that the yields will be low and the benefit of this £10 an acre will soon be wiped out.
Then I would submit to the Minister, too, that the cost of reseeding these days is so great that again the £10 an acre given under this Scheme will be wiped out. Personally, I feel that there ought to be some other method of helping these farmers rather than using this Scheme.
Although I do not want to appear to be difficult, I do not want to appear to be, as it were, stopping the farmers from having the benefits of this Scheme, I do believe for the reasons which I have given, that this is an unwise move. I would have thought it better to have provided for the raising of store cattle and Irish cattle and so on to use this grass and to provide the cash necessary for that, rather than ploughing up. It would mean the grass could be used and the stockmen could be kept, and it would not be necessary to have the purchasing of implements to do this ploughing up job. In the long run it would help with our beef supplies, and we must


admit that too much ploughing up might produce more cereals than we require.
Therefore, although I do not want to run the Scheme down and I fully accept that the Government have brought it in with the best of intentions, I feel that there are some very real dangers here, particularly in the type of area and type of fields which probably will be ploughed up. I hope the Minister will be able to allay some of my fears.

10.27 p.m.

Mr. John M. Temple: May I make it clear on behalf of my hon. Friends and myself that we welcome this Scheme as a very small piece of assistance to some of those who have suffered so much as a result of this foot-and-mouth epidemic. I emphasise that it is "some" of them because it is quite clear that not all farmers who have suffered will gain anything at all out of this scheme, and I emphasise as well that the money involved under he Scheme is not substantial. The Joint Parliamentary Secretary, unfortunately, did not quantify either the acreage likely to be affected or the sum of money which will be expended. I think those are important points.
I would like to thank my hon. Friends who have taken part in this debate and I would say that they are some of the faithful Members who have spoken up in recent weeks and months on behalf of their constituents who have suffered so very severely.
I would emphasise that the farmers themselves, in taking up grants under this scheme, will be facing difficult decisions because they wish to get back into the livestock business as soon as possible. Passing reference is permissible, I believe, to the labour force. Today the labour force in agriculture is highly specialised and it is not possible to turn a herdsman into a ploughman and vice versa, at the drop of a hat.
Therefore my hon. Friend the Member for Torrington (Mr. Peter Mills) was perfectly right when he wondered will the farmers have the tackle? I would add, have they got the skilled men who can plough a field? Only this morning I was speaking to my foreman and he was saying how difficult it is to get men today to plough a field properly. When one is ploughing in grassland it takes a

good deal of skill to plough in the grass in a satisfactory manner.
I should like to pay tribute to the versatility of the farm worker. It is amazing that we expect them to turn from being experts in one field to being experts in another almost overnight, and that is a consideration which is very relevant to the operation of this Scheme.
I am surprised that the Joint Parliamentary Secretary did not give any estimate of the acreage which he expected to be ploughed. I have seen one estimate of about 25,000 acres, and, if the ploughing grant is at the rate of £10 an acre, a sum of £250,000 will be involved under the Order. Put in the context of the total loss which the farming community has suffered, that is a very small sum. It works out at about 1 per cent. on the compensation values, and that in itself is less than the margin of error of an extremely competent valuer. So the assistance to the farming community will be extremely small, and the incidence of the help will be very uneven.
On 30th January, when speaking about the ploughing grant, the Minister was very fair. He said:
… it will make some contribution."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 30th January, 1968; Vol. 757, c. 1180.]
He might have said that it will make "some small contribution". Nevertheless, we welcome it.
Putting the matter in perspective, I calculate that some 2,400 farms will have been affected by the epidemic. Those holdings probably average about 100 acres, which means that the amount of land involved is about 250,000 acres. In other words, we are discussing a grant of the order of £1 for every acre affected.
Again taking an average, the grant will amount to about £100 per farm, and one of the aims of the grant is to ease the pressure on restocking and tide over these farms while they are not properly in business. I have consulted farmer friends of mine, and they estimate that, at best, they could not possibly be back in business to any extent for six months, and that they will not be back fully in business for a further 18 months, making two years in all.
Estimating the loss to them at just over £4,000 and putting it against the nominal £100 which, in theory, each


could get, it means that the average farmer will lose some £4,000. In other words, the only supplementary grant proposed by the Ministry so far will be one-fortieth of the loss suffered.
The last debate on a ploughing order took place on 23rd May, 1966, when other ploughing grant orders were under discussion. To give the House some idea of the relativity of the proposed grant, for 1965-66 there was a £5 million ploughing grant order for England and Wales covering one million acres, and a £500,000 grant for some 40,000 acres under what was described as Part II of that Order. Those figures compare very favourably with the £250,000 which I postulate as the figure involved under the present grant. This is fairly small stuff, by any standard, and it occurs to me to ask the hon. Gentleman if this additional money is to come out of the Price Review or whether it will be an additional supplementary estimate.
The Minister has said that the prime object of the grant is to encourage cash cropping, and he mentioned grain. There is also the possibility of horticultural crops, but I rather discount that, because very little of the land involved will probably go to horticulture. On the other hand, there is direct reseeding, which I think will be used to an extent. However, in the counties which have been most affected, Shropshire and Cheshire, there are very limited drying facilities for grain. If another 50,000 tons of grain is to be grown, which is what we can expect from 25,000 acres, will the drying facilities be available for it, and will the combines be available to deal with it? We do not have an enormous surplus of combines in the livestock areas. Normally, there is no call for them. But this is an emergency operation, and I hope that the Joint Parliamentary Secretary will say that his advisers are bearing this point in mind.
Again, will the standard quantities be altered because of this decision to put an extra 50,000 tons of grain on the market? I hope that the Parliamentary Secretary will deal with that when he replies. Those are my few thoughts on the grain side that may result from the operation of this Order.
Turning to reseeding, I was exceedingly interested in what my hon. Friend the Member for Westmorland (Mr. Jopling)

said about direct reseeding as a result of rotovating a field which has previously been killed out by chemical spraying. I adopted this practice experimentally a few years ago and now use it as a regular part of the reseeding programme on my own farm, so I do understand it.
I took the trouble to look up the debate on the Ploughing Grants Order on 23rd May, 1966, and the Parliamentary Secretary made a very important statement about this matter:
I know that the whole question of chemical treatment of grassland for reseeding—or, for that matter, cropping—is now on the cards. We have not included it yet, but, naturally, we are looking into every method of reseeding."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 23rd May, 1966; Vol. 729, c. 176.].
It seems surprising, as the Parliamentary Secretary knew about this nearly two years ago, that in fact this modern method of reseeding is not proposed at the present time. I cannot think of any method of reseeding which would be more suitable for much of the rather unusual land that was referred to by my hon. Friends the Members for Leominster (Sir Clive Bossom) and Nantwich (Mr. Grant-Ferris). I shall come back to this point, because it is important.
The Parliamentary Secretary, in a letter to me of 31st January relevant to reseeding of the whole area of a field which in fact contained the graves of cattle in one part, said,
Direct reseeding will not be prohibited.
I have been in conversation with the Secretary of the Cheshire branch of the National Farmers Union and he tells me that at county level it does not seem that the Minister's advisers are very keen on direct reseeding. Would the Minister make it clear that his advisers are keen on direct reseeding and will advise and indeed encourage direct reseeding? I believe that in counties like Cheshire and Shropshire direct reseeding may be the most effective way of making use of this particular grant.
I now turn to a couple of points made by my hon. Friends the Members for Leominster and Nantwich about those unfortunate farmers who are not eligible for this grant, because they have land whch is not suitable. Concerning the observation of my hon. Friend the Member for Northwich, I was a bit disturbed with the section that he brought to our


attention, because I understood that farmers were able to get on with this job without approval of the Ministry. However, they may find at the end of the day that their operation has been one for which they will not get a grant. I hope that the Parliamentary Secretary will deal with this particular matter.
I do know that during wartime a certain amount of land was ploughed up which turned out to be a farming disaster, because the drainage on that particular land was ruined. If the method which I have described of chemical spraying followed by rotovating was carried out the drainage would not be affected. I cannot understand the present Ministry, knowing two years ago that this was a first-class method, not having got round to including it in an Order of this nature.

Mr. Grant-Ferris: I do want to assure my hon. Friend that in some places in the Nantwich constituency the top soil is even too thin to be available for rotovating.

Mr. Temple: I am surprised at that, because one can rotovate to the extent of an inch or possibly half-inch only and get a fairly useful seed bed. I take that from my hon. Friend, but I assure him that shallow rotovation is effective.
My hon. Friend the Member for Leominster mentioned the special problems of those who have common land, and only common land. This emphasises what I said at the beginning, that only a certain number of people who have been affected by the foot-and-mouth epidemic will benefit from this grant. I think that this is most unfortunate, because they have the special difficulty of re-establishing their flocks. I believe that the correct terminology is the "hefting" problem, in that flocks are attached to the ground and they take many years to acclimatise themselves to a particular area. It is therefore doubly unfortunate that sheep farmers have been left out of the scope of assistance under a scheme of this nature.
When I heard the Minister explaining this grant on the radio or on television in. November, I thought that it was going to be a tremendous encouragement. It certainly sounded as though it was. I thought, "Here is a Minister who is determined to give massive first-aid", but it has turned out to be the first and

last special aid that the industry has had. I am disappointed that this is not described as the first of a series of first-aid operations to help the farming industry which has gone through this unprecedented and devastating disaster.
I know that everyone in the House is sympathetic to all those who have suffered so much in this disaster. This grant will go a very small way to assist some. I hope that it will hold back the rush for restocking, but I emphasise that farmers who wish to take advantage of this grant will have to do so now, because the time for ploughing is at hand, and if it is left for only a few weeks the season for it will have passed. I hope that the message will go out from the House that although this measure is small, it must give encouragement, and I trust that the encouragement will mean that some additional grass will be ploughed.
I hope also that the Minister will be able to reply to some of the points which have been put to him, and that the grant will be of some real benefit to the farming community.

10.42 p.m.

Mr. John Mackie: With the permission of the House, I would like to reply to as many of the points which have been raised as I can.
I am sorry that at least two hon. Gentlemen have suggested that this is a very small scheme. I do not think that it is. It may be small in comparison with the major ploughing schemes of the past, but it will be of considerable help to farmers. It will give help all along the line, and it will give direct help to some farmers. I know that advantage has been taken of it to a considerable extent, that not all farmers will rush in and stock, and this will give help to farmers who must stock because they cannot plough. It will provide general help all along the line, although it may not be of direct help to some who cannot plough.
The hon. Member for Leominster (Sir Clive Bossom) said that Herefordshire had a special problem. This applies to quite a few areas, to hill and common land, and I give the hon. Gentleman the assurance that the problems of areas which do not get the help of the £10 an acre ploughing grant will be considered.


We are looking closely at the problem of how to help those who cannot plough. We are having discussions with the N.F.U. to see how it can be done, but it is not an easy problem.
The hon. Member for Nantwich (Mr. Grant-Ferris) thanked us for what we were doing. He raised an interesting point about the wet areas. I noticed that hon. Members said "Hear hear" when two hon. Members referred to land having been ploughed during the war not benefiting from it, and still not having recovered. I am an arable farmer, and I have great difficulty in believing that. I am sure that today we have skills which we did not have 20 years ago or during the war. I am sure that if there is land in Britain which can be ploughed, this is the right way to do it. I should like to be shown some of this land. I am always willing to be educated—I have never said that I cannot be educated—and I am willing to go to see any land which the hon. Member feels could not be improved by ploughing, if it is possible to plough it.
He made an interesting point about assistance in drainage. 1 can see difficulties in this proposal. He should remember that we give a 50 per cent. grant for drainage, with another 10 per cent. if it is particularly difficult hill land, and I certainly could not promise to introduce a system whereby we looked at land and said that £10 an acre should be granted for that instead of for ploughing. But I will look at that interesting suggestion.

Mr. Grant-Ferris: What I had in mind was in order to administer this easily everybody should have the option of either £10 for ploughing or £10 for drainage.

Mr. Mackie: That would be a very wide option, but I will look at the interesting point which the hon. Member made.
I could not quite follow the argument advanced by the hon. and learned Member for Northwich (Sir J. Foster). He is a lawyer. He said that the Minister must not be judge in his own court. I thought that a judge was always judge in his own court, but I may be wrong. He asked whether there was any form of appeal. There is always the opportunity of appeal to the county agricultural

executive committee, and many appeals are made. The same right of appeal will exist under this scheme to the C.A.E.C. as under the normal ploughing scheme. I admit that if they disagree with the original decision the final appeal must be to the Minister and that he is the final judge, but somebody has to make the ultimate judgment.
The hon. and learned Gentleman also emphasised the need to help those who cannot plough, and I give him the assurance that we are looking at that matter very carefully, and that my right hon. Friend hopes to make an announcement about it, one way or another, sooner rather than later.
The hon. Member for Westmorland (Mr. Jopling) said that we had to give these farmers a breathing space and that the scheme would be a help. He hopes, as I hope, that much of this land can be improved by ploughing. He also mentioned direct reseeding. With other hon. Members, he spoke of new methods of improvement by spraying, cutting into the grass and reseeding in that way. We are looking at that proposal. The hon. Member for the City of Chester is right; I said something about it two years ago. But he must remember that we were phasing out the ploughing grant scheme, although we still have the £12 an acre for difficult land. We had not got round to the point which he made. Indeed, we did not expect this kind of situation. But we will keep in mind the question of this modern method when we have an emergency such as this.
I am sorry that the hon. Member for Torrington (Mr. Peter Mills) was so pessimistic, as were some other hon. Members, about the versatility of the farmer and the farm worker. I remind hon. Members that when he was Minister of Agriculture during the yar, the late Lord Hudson urged the Cheshire farmers to plough and plough and plough, and that the more they ploughed, the more milk they produced. We should learn that ploughing in what are considered non-arable areas is not as bad as it is made out to be. During the war these Cheshire farmers, no doubt with much less equipment than they have today, managed to plough up to 50 per cent. of their land, and the milk production increased, too.
We should not be worried about farmers not managing to do the job because


of lack of equipment, because there are a great number of contractors available. The Minister will give all the assistance he can and, if necessary, he will encourage contractors to go into these areas. The National Agricultural Advisory Service will give advice in this way. But I think that we shall find that where they have the will, the farmers will find a way. I do not think that there will be any difficulty about combining, but there might be difficulty with drying if we have a very wet harvest. We shall need to watch that situation. I do not think that there would be any difficulty there—

Mr. Temple: I am glad that the hon. Gentleman took up my point about grain drying. Few grain crops in Cheshire come off the thresher sufficiently dry to be stored immediately.

Mr. Mackie: I appreciate very well, since I come from the North of Scotland, the problems of drying grain.
One hon. Member was worried about the extra production of cereals and wondered whether this would affect standard quantities. We think that the area affected will be 25,000 or 30,000 acres, and the sum involved perhaps a quarter of a million pounds, and we do not think that the standard quantities would be affected
I doubt whether there would be any difficulties over labour. Some hon. Members were worried about fields not being levelled or ploughed properly. I am reminded of the story of the Royal Show held at Ipswich before the First World War, when Ransome's had a beautifully ploughed field bearing the notice "Ploughed by Ransome's ploughs", and the night before, Howard's flattened it all out and put up another sign, "Harrowed by a Howard's harrow". I think this illustrates that it is the subsequent operation which counts most so that we need not worry about the kind of ploughing about which hon. Members are worried. I said that there is no requirement to sow a particular crop as a condition of this Scheme. We would encourage farmers to sow a cash crop, but there would be nothing to stop them reseeding if this is the best way, to improve a bad ley but I cannot imagine that they will plough up a good ley to reseed
The hon. Member said the scheme represents a small proportion of the total loss to farmers. In answers to Questions 10 days ago, I said what we were doing to help farmers. The most important is augmenting the advisory services in the area to a tremendous extent. Many men are engaged there already and we are prepared to put in as many as are needed to give advice not only on arable farming but on buildings or anything else. That in itself is one of the main things which we are doing. We are also, of course, considering those who cannot get this type of assistance—

Mr. Temple: Will this amount of money come out of the Price Review?

Mr. Mackie: No, it will not. This is an extra for this emergency.
I am glad that the Scheme is generally welcomed, and I am certain that it will help farmers. I hope that the House will accept it.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,
That the Ploughing Grants (Emergency Payments) Scheme 1968, a draft of which was laid before this House on 22nd January, be approved.

SECONDARY SCHOOLS (CO-EDUCATION)

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Harper.]

10.55 p.m.

Mr. Denis Coe: In the recent debate on education, I drew attention to the fact that while 98 per cent. of children in State primary schools are educated co-educationally, only half of them, when they go on to secondary schools, will continue in co-educational secondary schools. However, from the age of 15 onwards, we expect our young people to work together and mix in colleges and universities and be capable of forming stable emotional relationships. My contention is that co-education at the secondary level helps to provide this link between the primary level and adulthood.
It is for this reason that I am initiating this debate. If I am correct, then I


believe that the opportunities for coeducation at the secondary level are poor in many areas. This is of added significance since, at this time, many local education authorities are deciding on comprehensive secondary reorganisation. My interest in this subject stems from personal experience both as a teacher—in co-educational and single-sex secondary schools—and, fortuitously, as a pupil in both types of school. I therefore start with a bias in favour of co-education.
It is difficult to discuss this subject in view of the limited amount of research which is going on into it and the fact that the research which is going on seems to be concerned only with academic comparisons. This appears to be the sole criteria. I argue that all educationalists believe that education is much wider than academic achievement. Preparing a child for life means developing his whole personality as well as his academic prowess. Mr. Derek Miller of the Tavistock Clinic has argued that because society has changed, so the emotional demands which adolescents make on schools have changed. Thus, schools must provide social networks for young people and act as an anchor point for psychological development. Whether a school is a co-educational or single-sex one, if it is bad it cannot achieve this development. If I am nailing my colours to the mast tonight in favour of co-education, I nevertheless pay tribute to the fine work which is done in single-sex schools, not least by those in my constituency
I wish to discuss the influence of coeducation under two headings: first, its effect on the social development of children and, secondly, its effect on the academic achievements of children. On the social development side, I believe that co-education provides a realistic environment for youngsters. It does so because there is no unnatural break from the primary stage, where companionship is accepted as being normal and desirable. If this is carried on into the secondary stage, this conveys to the child a stamp of official approval on this normal and desirable relationship. In other words, there is no suggestion, as there might otherwise be, that such a relationship is not quite nice. It helps, rather than hinders, a satisfactory attitude towards the sexual problems which face young adolescents.
For example, Mr. Miller argues on clinical evidence that the assertion sometimes made that co-education makes boys less manly is wrong and that the opposite is true; that boys feel more secure in their feeling of manliness. Mr. Miller also claims that early sexual behaviour is more common among girls educated at single-sex schools. These are some of the problems which are not always recognised as much as they should be.
Co-education means that the family unit can be maintained, with brothers and sisters going to the same school. This consequently means that parents are more easily involved in the life of the school, with the result that, being more easily identified with the school, family life is closer, since interest is concentrated on one school and not on two or three. I believe that co-educational secondary schools give particular help to a large number of children who are denied a complete family background by the absence of one parent for one reason or another—bereavement or some other family difficulty—and this is particularly so for girls.
Also I cannot help feeling that the staff of common rooms in co-educational secondary schools are likely to be happier than in single sex schools. They will be more outward-looking, and if this is the case it will have a beneficial effect upon the children.
Again the range of common activities which boys and girls can enjoy together are so much greater in co-educational secondary schools. I find it one of the most attractive features of the co-educational school to see the way in which musical, dramatic and social activities can be enjoyed together. Therefore, I believe for all these reasons that the development of the personality can take place best within the environment of a mixed secondary school.
If we look at the academic development, we find, as I said earlier, that the sole criteria for judgment between single-sex schools and co-educational schools is academic achievement. I would argue that there is a danger in assessing any difference of standards solely on the basis of segregation. In fact, if we look at academic standards in secondary schools generally, we find that they are affected by a number of


other factors—for example the percentage of academic intake which differs considerably in different parts of the country, the difference in the tradition and standing of particular schools, the quality of the staffs, and the dominant social class.
All these are factors which are difficult to measure when trying to assess the relative academic achievements of different schools, particularly between mixed schools and single-sex schools. Therefore, the evidence I have been able to discover is very limited and often conflicting.
A number of findings have been based an O level results in the G.C.E. On these it would seem that boys in coeducational grammar schools are better than boys in boys' grammar schools. Yet a recent survey has tried to show that the very opposite is the case, and there are similar difficulties in assessing whether or not girls in single-sex schools do better than girls in mixed schools. Again there seems to be a conflict of evidence. In any case, the difference between the two is so small that I believe that the social reasons that I have advanced outweigh any slight disadvantage, if there is one, in academic achievements.
There are one or two other points of significance. We are told that qualified female staff are becoming more and more difficult to obtain for single-sex girls' schools and that this must obviously affect the quality of the education which can be given there. I believe also that the range of courses in co-educational schools will tend to be greater, and also that the traditional barriers between different courses are being broken down so that we do not just talk about woodwork for boys but wood sculpture for girls as well. The use of buildings in co-educational schools is probably much more effective than it is in single-sex schools. For all those reasons I believe that it is desirable that we should have co-educational secondary schools.
I should now like to look at the national and local picture concerning the actual provision of co-educational education. For the years 1964, 1965 and 1966 the percentage of mixed secondary schools in relation to the total number of secondary schools maintained by local education authorities was 54·87, 55·56

and 56·89 respectively. In other words, there is a slight movement towards an increase in the provision of co-education. However, when we examine the number of mixed secondary schools maintained by each individual local education authority the variation is truly immense.
Out of 45 county authorities, only seven are below the national average of 56·89 per cent. Kent—3·.5 per cent., and Cheshire—36·3 per cent. are the lowest, while Suffolk, East-90·9 per cent.; Leicestershire—88·9 per cent., and Bedfordshire—87·9 per cent. are very much above the average. The Welsh counties have an even higher percentage. All thirteen are above the national average, and Anglesey, Cardiganshire, Flintshire, Merioneth, Montgomeryshire and Radnorshire are all 100 per cent. co-educational. I think that I should move my family to Wales.
In the county boroughs and inner and outer London education authorities the position gives me much less satisfaction. For example, in England, out of 99 local education authorities, 73 are below the national average and the percentages are even more startling Hastings and Smethwick have no mixed secondary schools at all, and they are closely followed by, for example, Birkenhead—5 per cent.; Bootle—6·3 per cent.; Gloucester—7·7 per cent.; Portsmouth—7·4 per cent.; Southend—5·9 per cent.; Wigan—6·7 per cent., and Bromley—6·1 per cent. At the other end of the scale, we have places like Bury and Oldham with 100 per cent., followed by places such as Barnsley—83·3 per cent., and Preston—81·8 per cent. The county boroughs in Wales range from 18·2 per cent. for Swansea to 80 per cent. for Merthyr Tydfil.
These figures demonstrate that in most centres of population the opportunities for parents to send their children to co-educational schools are not very great. Unfortunately, I cannot see any quick change in this state of affairs, yet the question is of paramount importance at this particular time, because local education authorities are changing to comprehensive secondary education. It is difficult at this stage to assess the figures for comprehensive secondary school education, but it is interesting to notice that counties such as Anglesey and Leicestershire which are highly comprehensive are also highly co-educational.
The national figures, however, are not all that encouraging. For example in the three years I have quoted—1964, 1965 and 1966—the national figures for comprehensive schools which are also co-educational were 67·18, 70·61 and 67·67 per cent. It is by no means certain that the change over to comprehensive education in the county boroughs will necessarily mean a change to co-education.
What can be done about this position? I recently asked my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State what general advice he has given to local authorities on the desirability of establishing co-educational secondary schools. He replied that he had given none, and that this was a matter for local authorities to consider in the light of local circumstances. In view of the figures I have quoted, I believe that advice—not direction—should be offered. What is required, first, is an authoritative full-scale inquiry, and I ask the Minister tonight to impress on his right hon. Friend the need for such an inquiry so that such authoritative advice would be available to local education authorities. Thinking on the subject is so often clouded by prejudice and tradition, without a real appreciation of the full implications on the development of the child, that only an authoritative inquiry could dispel it.
I end as I began. Education is aimed at developing the potentialities of the child to the full. Therefore, I think that we have to be certain that the setting in which we are trying to do this is the one most likely to achieve the aim. I believe that co-education in secondary schools will help in this process. I hope that I am proved right. But it is at least certain, from the figures I have given, that there is need for greater opportunity for co-education in many areas and for a great deal of research into this vital problem.

11.10 p.m.

The Under-Secretary of State for Education and Science (Mr. Denis Howell): I am sure that we are grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Middleton and Prestwich (Mr. Coe) for raising this subject and, indeed, for the Questions he put which led him to this debate on a most interesting and important topic, on which he speaks with great personal knowledge and practical experience.

Although, in fairness, I have to put both sides of the argument because, as he himself has suggested, this is not something in which my right hon. Friend can impose his will, my hon. Friend made a very convincing case.
I also congratulate my hon. Friend on this debate because in the last three years there has been more proper debate about the content of education than we have had probably in the previous 30 years in this country, and those of us who are passionate educationists must be heartened that this House should debate not just the structure or organisation or salaries of education but also the important principles involved in the practice and content of education.
The information we were able to send my hon. Friend proves to the hilt his contention that there is a tremendous variety of practice among local authorities in this matter. I will not give the figures he quoted again but I agree with him wholeheartedly that Wales comes out of this—if one is a co-educationist—very honourably, for 15 out of 17 of its local authorities have more than half their children in co-educational schools.
On the whole, the counties of England similarly come out well: 40 out of 45 are over the half-way mark. But from this point of view the boroughs of England present a disappointing picture and it is here perhaps that much of the propaganda work has to be carried out for co-education. Only 26 out of 78 boroughs in England have a co-education provision of more than 50 per cent.
I am glad that my hon. Friend mentioned that this is a secondary school problem and not a primary school problem. But the figures for the primary schools are amazing, for they are 99·9 per cent. for infants' schools in England, 99·5 per cent. for junior and infants' schools and 91 per cent. for junior schools. The battle, if one can call it that, has been well won in that sector.
My hon. Friend also mentioned the difficulties in relation to comprehensive reorganisation. It is part of our case that the movement towards co-education is being considerably advanced at present. It is true that, in the last two or three years, there has not been a significant improvement in the figures but, as we get further into secondary reorganisation, it is clear that the momentum is


gathering, and this should be seen throughout the country as the reorganisation schemes take effect.
If my hon. Friend initiates another adjournment debate and puts down Questions in three or five years' time, he will, It am sure, be struck by the amount of advance we shall have made by then. Although I have to be careful about my right hon. Friend's duties and his position in relation to local government, nevertheless there have been some very interesting experiences with some of these reorganisation schemes. All the following authorities have proposed to base their secondary reorganisation plans on co-education and to amalgamate single sex schools—Worcester, Ealing, Croydon, Normanton, in the West Riding of Yorkshire, Gateshead, Sunderland and St. Albans. Hertfordshire. There are others, but I mention those because in each case there were objections against reorganisation proposals, and my hon. Friend will be glad to know that in each case the Secretary of State over-ruled the objections on the ground that the proposed amalgamation was an integral part of the reorganisation plan. That is perhaps the most heartening evidence which I can produce for my hon. Friend.
I should like to mention some of the principles which have to guide us in the matter. There seem to be three main principles to which my right hon. Friend should have regard. There is, first, the extremely important matter of the right of parental choice. I know that we all pay regard to parental choice and would not wish the Secretary of State to disregard it, except where it proved to be absolutely essential to do so, as in the cases which I have mentioned. The opposition to the movement towards co-education would be strengthened if it involved closing schools to which parents were understandably attached.
The second principle is the autonomy of local authorities, which my hon. Friend asked us to advise, recognising that they cannot be instructed. It is fundamental to the whole basis of educational administration that local education authorities have autonomy within their own fields, and so they should. One of the things needed is an informed public dialogue and controversy in this matter, probably particularly at election times. That is the meaning of demo-

cracy and if my hon. Friend has done anything tonight to further that, I am sure that he will be as delighted as we shall be.
Finally, we must not forget the position of the teachers. Some teachers are extremely uneasy about being asked to teach in mixed classes. They desire to teach only boys or only girls, for many reasons, and one has to respect their desires in this respect.
Briefly to sum up what seems to us to be the main case against co-education, before turning to the case for co-education and doing so as impartially as I can; girls and boys mature physically, mentally, emotionally at different rates and, therefore, it is argued they ought not to be at the same school, or in the same class together while that process is going on. It is said that it is all right to have co-education in primary schools and that after the early years of puberty it may be all right, but that this is an extremely important physiological consideration to be borne in mind.
Secondly, associated with this it is said that boys suffer because of the earlier intellectual and emotional development of the girls, and the opposite side of that coin is that girls often resent the sarcasm and insensitivity which they find in boys at this period of their lives.
There is then the subject of academic results, to which my hon. Friend rightly drew attention. I have to tell him that there is no evidence available to us at the moment which would convincingly prove that co-education produces any better academic results than do single sex schools. There is a little evidence the other way, but we and our inspectorate are inclined to discount it because it has never been properly assessed, and no firm sociological studies have been made. Perhaps one of the important by-products of the debate will be that we shall get such a proper assessment of the evidence. I have said that some teachers find it difficult to discipline a mixed class, and there are many religious schools with a strong preference for single sex education. That sums up the case against co-education.
My hon. Friend might think that in part this is based upon the prejudices of people and it probably is. Part of the price that we pay for living in a democracy is the right of people to


exercise their prejudice if they wish to do so. We have to be careful to hold the balance properly so that they can do this.
I now turn to the case for co-education as we see it. This is again based partly on social and partly on educational grounds. I agree that the school is a preparation for life. The social advantages of co-education are obvious for all to see, and separation of the sexes is really unnatural and illogical. Certainly children educated in single sex schools are more likely to grow up to be awkward in the presence of the opposite sex than those educated at coeducational schools. Secondly those who benefit from co-education enjoy much less of a strained relationship with their friends at a very sensitive time in their lives. The social advantages of coeducation were well summed up by my hon. Friend when he spoke of the development of the personality and its importance.
The educational advantages are first of all the interplay of different attitudes and styles on the mind, both of pupils and teachers, secondly a much wider choice of curriculum and thirdly the extra-curricular activities in such schools, particularly in plays and music societies and so on. Finally, some teachers, contrary to what is said by teachers at single sex schools, find that discipline is much easier in a co-educa-

tional school. The Schools Council is carrying out research into this and we await its findings with much interest.
One of my other responsibilities is the administering of the youth service. I have often said, and it is an argument here in favour of the case being put forward, that one of the most important things in life for this country is the need to have boys and girls brought together in a good, wholesome atmosphere, in circumstances favourable to the development of their personalities. I believe that the case for co-education has been made out. The movement towards co-education is gathering momentum and will continue to do so.
By causing us to debate this matter tonight my hon. Friend has performed an extremely useful service to his cause and perhaps more good will come out of it than in any other way. In the long run this debate, and this general propaganda approach to the problem will probably do more good than any direct intervention by any Department of State, or any attempt by a Minister of the Crown to impose his will. Since those possibilities are not open to us we must rest content for the moment upon my hon. Friend continuing to take advantage of his opportunities to further his cause.

Question put and agreed to.

Adjourned accordingly at twenty-three minutes past Eleven o'clock.